Nowadays microframewors are very popular. Since Blake Mizerany created Sinatra (Ruby), we have a lot of Sinatra clones in PHP world. Probably the most famous (and a really good one) is Silex. But we also have several ones, such as Limonade, GluePHP and Slim. Those frameworks are similar.

He looks at how several of these frameworks handle routing and setup, mostly using the closures/anonymous function callbacks available in PHP 5.3. His simple example framework does some basic URI handling to find the requested module, class and function (action) to call. You can even define the output format from options like json, txt, css, js and jsonp. A sample "controller" is included with a "Hello world" and there's a mention of some other options he's exploring including Twig and Assetic integration.

Turns out that variables called as functions must be an instance of Closure, an instance of a class which implements __invoke(), or a string representing a named function in the global namespace. In the anonymous function body above, $fibonacci is none of these. It is an undeclared, free variable in the closure created by the anonymous function. At the time when it's called, it hasn't been bound-hence the Notice that you would have gotten if error reporting were set at a high enough threshold - and therefore can't be called as anything, let alone as a function.

He tried using the "use" functionality PHP closures have to bring a variable/object/etc into the scope of the running function, but it still threw an error. As it turns out, the combination of "use"-ing the object and calling it by reference handles things correctly. He takes this method and applies it in two examples - one call in an array_map function and another in an array_reduce.

Anonymous function calls are a well-known pattern in JavaScript but there are also use cases in PHP where they make sense. Of course PHP 5.3 with its Lambda Functions is required!

He includes several little code snippets showing how the anonymous functions work including the "use" keyword functionality that lets you import variables from outside the function. There's a sneaky pass-by-reference in there, so don't get tripped up.

Recently I was working on something and I wanted to call an object method as a callback, but got confused when I realised the method had been caused statically. This was caused by my inability to RTFM and I wondered how I'd come so far without actually coming across the many and varied things you can pass into any place a callback is needed.

Besides the normal callback functions you can put in something like call_user_func, she also mentions something a bit more powerful - passing in an array that contains a pointer to an object and a method inside it. This ability allows you to keep your OOP encapsulation intact without having to make global functions. In PHP 5.3, there's even some of the PHP functions that use call backs that will allow you to use closures/anonymous functions without even having to make a separate function.

Both solutions allow to instantiate an anonymous object with properties. They are used as value objects and have no other purpose than storing values, so no logic can be included and they don't come with methods. They can be used as function parameters instead of arrays, for instance. PHP 5.3.0 introduced anonymous functions and closures, so it is now possible to attach functions to these VOs (*). [...] The first thing to notice is that these properties are not methods but callable functions:

In his example, an anonymous function dynamically appended to an object doesn't have access to a property set on the object just one line before. There's a way around it with call_user_func, but it's not practical. His proposed solution is to create a type of Anonymous class that uses the __call method to catch the methods and translate them into calls to call_user_func_array automatically.

Anonymous functions are common in various modern languages, Ruby and Javascript being the popular one. But until version 5.3 PHP lacked true anonymous functions. Although newbie programmers are hard-pressed to find a suitable application for anonymous functions, they are indispensable if you do a lot of OOP, and can provide some elegant solutions to some particular problems.

He starts with a look at variable functions both in procedural code an object-oriented then moves to the anonymous/lambda function examples (with some nexting involved) and a few uses for closures.

How many times have you written code, which checks if a value is null, and then displays something special because of that? Have you written the very same check in more than one place in your code? A null object is an elegant solution to this.

His example shows how to replace a standard User class to grab the user's name with an anonymous user that extends it to return the string "Anonymous User" instead. By creating an intermediate class like this, you can simple call a "getName" and know that there will be some sort of value as the result.

One of the most exciting features of PHP 5.3 is the first-class support for anonymous functions. You may have heard them referred to as closures or lambdas as well. There's a lot of meaning behind these terms so let's straighten it all out.

They explain the differences between closures and lambda functions (hint: not much) and give code examples for both them and closures.

Only some days ago PHP.net introduced lambda functions (+ closures) are most anticipated, because they'll increase flexibility and good-looks of code a lot. Today I'm going to try to prove why lambda functions are so useful.

He looks at what lambda functions are and one of their more apparent uses - sorting. He gives an example working with information about authors and their books, sorting them by publisher and title.

As of version 5.3, PHP will offer better support for anonymous functions and a new syntax which supports closures. [...] Anonymous functions are functions that are defined without being bound to a proper name. Typically, anonymous functions are used only a limited number of times and for a specific purpose; you could think of them as "throw-away" functions if you'd like.

He includes some code examples showing how the anonymous functions can replace the current create_function method and how closures can effectively import variable values into the current scope just like they were passed in.