theoretical PHP arrays

Hi, I trying to find a reason why array functions are not allowed to be used as normal arrays. To clarify, I'm allowed to write $arr = array( "maria", "mario", "luigi", "luisa"); echo $arr[1]; but I'm not allowed to write echo array( "maria", "mario", "luigi", "luisa")[1]; In PHP documentation I read that "array" is a language construct, not a function. So this may be the reason. But I also tried with echo (explode (" ", "maria mario luigi luisa"))[1]; and this doesn't work either (even if "explode" is a function). Not surprisingly, $arr = explode (" ", "maria mario luigi luisa"); echo $arr[1]; does work. So, if I can straightforwardly divide by, say, 2 the integer output by a function, why shouldn't I be allowed to straightforwardly use the array output by a function? This is not something completely weird that I'm asking. In Visual Basic (that I know mustn't be the most loved programming language for PHP users) you can say print array( "maria", "mario", "luigi", "luisa")(1) Maybe is THIS the reason why it doesn't work in PHP? ;-) Thanks for your consideration and help Stefano Stefano Federici ------------------------------------------------- Università degli Studi di Cagliari Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione Dipartimento di Scienze Pedagogiche e Filosofiche Via Is Mirrionis 1, 09123 Cagliari, Italia ------------------------------------------------- Tel: +39 349 818 1955 Fax: +39 070 937 1870