What are potential pitfalls to avoid when working with return statements in PHP functions to prevent unexpected behavior?

One potential pitfall to avoid when working with return statements in PHP functions is not properly handling all possible code paths. This can lead to unexpected behavior or errors if a return statement is missing or not executed under certain conditions. To prevent this, always ensure that every code path within the function includes a return statement. 

function calculateSum($num1, $num2) {
    $sum = $num1 + $num2;
    
    // Ensure a return statement is always executed
    return $sum;
}

// Usage
$result = calculateSum(5, 3);
echo $result; // Output: 8

Keywords

return statements PHP functions unexpected behavior pitfalls error types

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