In the context of PHP programming, what is the significance of returning a value from a user-defined function like scandir?

When a user-defined function like scandir returns a value in PHP, it allows the function to pass information back to the calling code. This can be useful for retrieving data or results from the function to be used in further processing. By returning a value, the function can communicate its output without directly modifying global variables or relying on side effects.

// Example of returning a value from a user-defined function like scandir
function getDirectoryContents($directory) {
    return scandir($directory);
}

$directory = "/path/to/directory";
$contents = getDirectoryContents($directory);

foreach($contents as $file) {
    echo $file . "<br>";
}