Old way of retrieving arguments (deprecated)

After having checked the number of arguments, you need to get access to the arguments themselves_ This is done with the help of zend_get_parameters_ex():

zval **parameter; if(zend_get_parameters_ex(1, &parameter) != SUCCESS) WRONG_PARAM_COUNT;

All arguments are stored in a zval container, which needs to be pointed to twice_ The snippet above tries to retrieve one argument and make it available to us via the parameter pointer_

zend_get_parameters_ex() accepts at least two arguments_ The first argument is the number of arguments to retrieve (which should match the number of arguments with which the function has been called; this is why it's important to check for correct call syntax)_ The second argument (and all following arguments) are pointers to pointers to pointers to zvals_ (Confusing, isn't it?) All these pointers are required because Zend works internally with **zval; to adjust a local **zval in our function,zend_get_parameters_ex() requires a pointer to it_

The return value of zend_get_parameters_ex() can either be SUCCESS or FAILURE, indicating (unsurprisingly) success or failure of the argument processing_ A failure is most likely related to an incorrect number of arguments being specified, in which case you should exit with WRONG_PARAM_COUNT_

To retrieve more than one argument, you can use a similar snippet:

zval **param1, **param2, **param3, **param4; if(zend_get_parameters_ex(4, &param1, &param2, &param3, &param4) != SUCCESS) WRONG_PARAM_COUNT;

zend_get_parameters_ex() only checks whether you're trying to retrieve too many parameters_ If the function is called with five arguments, but you're only retrieving three of them with zend_get_parameters_ex(), you won't get an error but will get the first three parameters instead_ Subsequent calls of zend_get_parameters_ex() won't retrieve the remaining arguments, but will get the same arguments again_