[php] In PHP, what is a closure and why does it use the "use" identifier?

I'm checking out some PHP 5.3.0 features and ran across some code on the site that looks quite funny:

public function getTotal($tax)
{
    $total = 0.00;

    $callback =
        /* This line here: */
        function ($quantity, $product) use ($tax, &$total)
        {
            $pricePerItem = constant(__CLASS__ . "::PRICE_" .
                strtoupper($product));
            $total += ($pricePerItem * $quantity) * ($tax + 1.0);
        };

    array_walk($this->products, $callback);
    return round($total, 2);
}

as one of the examples on anonymous functions.

Does anybody know about this? Any documentation? And it looks evil, should it ever be used?

Zupa did a great job explaining closures with 'use' and the difference between EarlyBinding and Referencing the variables that are 'used'.

So I made a code example with early binding of a variable (= copying):

<?php

$a = 1;
$b = 2;

$closureExampleEarlyBinding = function() use ($a, $b){
    $a++;
    $b++;
    echo "Inside \$closureExampleEarlyBinding() \$a = ".$a."<br />";
    echo "Inside \$closureExampleEarlyBinding() \$b = ".$b."<br />";    
};

echo "Before executing \$closureExampleEarlyBinding() \$a = ".$a."<br />";
echo "Before executing \$closureExampleEarlyBinding() \$b = ".$b."<br />";  

$closureExampleEarlyBinding();

echo "After executing \$closureExampleEarlyBinding() \$a = ".$a."<br />";
echo "After executing \$closureExampleEarlyBinding() \$b = ".$b."<br />";

/* this will output:
Before executing $closureExampleEarlyBinding() $a = 1
Before executing $closureExampleEarlyBinding() $b = 2
Inside $closureExampleEarlyBinding() $a = 2
Inside $closureExampleEarlyBinding() $b = 3
After executing $closureExampleEarlyBinding() $a = 1
After executing $closureExampleEarlyBinding() $b = 2
*/

?>

Example with referencing a variable (notice the '&' character before variable);

<?php

$a = 1;
$b = 2;

$closureExampleReferencing = function() use (&$a, &$b){
    $a++;
    $b++;
    echo "Inside \$closureExampleReferencing() \$a = ".$a."<br />";
    echo "Inside \$closureExampleReferencing() \$b = ".$b."<br />"; 
};

echo "Before executing \$closureExampleReferencing() \$a = ".$a."<br />";
echo "Before executing \$closureExampleReferencing() \$b = ".$b."<br />";   

$closureExampleReferencing();

echo "After executing \$closureExampleReferencing() \$a = ".$a."<br />";
echo "After executing \$closureExampleReferencing() \$b = ".$b."<br />";    

/* this will output:
Before executing $closureExampleReferencing() $a = 1
Before executing $closureExampleReferencing() $b = 2
Inside $closureExampleReferencing() $a = 2
Inside $closureExampleReferencing() $b = 3
After executing $closureExampleReferencing() $a = 2
After executing $closureExampleReferencing() $b = 3
*/

?>

A simpler answer.

function ($quantity) use ($tax, &$total) { .. };

1. The closure is a function assigned to a variable, so you can pass it around
2. A closure is a separate namespace, normally, you can not access variables defined outside of this namespace. There comes the use keyword:
3. use allows you to access (use) the succeeding variables inside the closure.
4. use is early binding. That means the variable values are COPIED upon DEFINING the closure. So modifying $tax inside the closure has no external effect, unless it is a pointer, like an object is.
5. You can pass in variables as pointers like in case of &$total. This way, modifying the value of $total DOES HAVE an external effect, the original variable's value changes.
6. Variables defined inside the closure are not accessible from outside the closure either.
7. Closures and functions have the same speed. Yes, you can use them all over your scripts.

As @Mytskine pointed out probably the best in-depth explanation is the RFC for closures. (Upvote him for this.)

The function () use () {} is like closure for PHP.

Without use, function cannot access parent scope variable

$s = "hello";
$f = function () {
    echo $s;
};

$f(); // Notice: Undefined variable: s

$s = "hello";
$f = function () use ($s) {
    echo $s;
};

$f(); // hello

The use variable's value is from when the function is defined, not when called

$s = "hello";
$f = function () use ($s) {
    echo $s;
};

$s = "how are you?";
$f(); // hello

use variable by-reference with &

$s = "hello";
$f = function () use (&$s) {
    echo $s;
};

$s = "how are you?";
$f(); // how are you?

closures are beautiful! they solve a lot of problems that come with anonymous functions, and make really elegant code possible (at least as long as we talk about php).

javascript programmers use closures all the time, sometimes even without knowing it, because bound variables aren't explicitly defined - that's what "use" is for in php.

there are better real-world examples than the above one. lets say you have to sort an multidimensional array by a sub-value, but the key changes.

<?php
    function generateComparisonFunctionForKey($key) {
        return function ($left, $right) use ($key) {
            if ($left[$key] == $right[$key])
                return 0;
            else
                return ($left[$key] < $right[$key]) ? -1 : 1;
        };
    }

    $myArray = array(
        array('name' => 'Alex', 'age' => 70),
        array('name' => 'Enrico', 'age' => 25)
    );

    $sortByName = generateComparisonFunctionForKey('name');
    $sortByAge  = generateComparisonFunctionForKey('age');

    usort($myArray, $sortByName);

    usort($myArray, $sortByAge);
?>

warning: untested code (i don't have php5.3 installed atm), but it should look like something like that.

there's one downside: a lot of php developers may be a bit helpless if you confront them with closures.

to understand the nice-ty of closures more, i'll give you another example - this time in javascript. one of the problems is the scoping and the browser inherent asynchronity. especially, if it comes to window.setTimeout(); (or -interval). so, you pass a function to setTimeout, but you can't really give any parameters, because providing parameters executes the code!

function getFunctionTextInASecond(value) {
    return function () {
        document.getElementsByName('body')[0].innerHTML = value; // "value" is the bound variable!
    }
}

var textToDisplay = prompt('text to show in a second', 'foo bar');

// this returns a function that sets the bodys innerHTML to the prompted value
var myFunction = getFunctionTextInASecond(textToDisplay);

window.setTimeout(myFunction, 1000);

myFunction returns a function with a kind-of predefined parameter!

to be honest, i like php a lot more since 5.3 and anonymous functions/closures. namespaces may be more important, but they're a lot less sexy.

Until very recent years, PHP has defined its AST and PHP interpreter has isolated the parser from the evaluation part. During the time when the closure is introduced, PHP's parser is highly coupled with the evaluation.

Therefore when the closure was firstly introduced to PHP, the interpreter has no method to know which which variables will be used in the closure, because it is not parsed yet. So user has to pleased the zend engine by explicit import, doing the homework that zend should do.

This is the so-called simple way in PHP.