Making a function set a variable

Basically, I want to make a function, when called, just sets $y=flv or something like that, so that I can use the variable later in the script.
when I try this, it echos nothing:

function upload_file_type($x) {

$parts = explode(".", $x);
$number = count($parts);
$ext = $parts[$number-1];

}

upload_file_type('file.name.flv');

echo $ext;

Code (markup):

The script is to separate a file extension from the file name.

so, I want the function to set $ext to 'flv' as a global variable, so that i can use the filename later in the script.

 

you should use return

ex:

function upload_file_type($x) {

$parts = explode(".", $x);
$number = count($parts);
$ext = $parts[$number-1];

return $ext;

}

echo upload_file_type($$x);

 

function upload_file_type($file) 
{
	return strtolower(array_pop(explode('.',$file)));	
}

$ext = upload_file_type('file.name.flv');

echo $ext;

PHP:

 

thanks, thats what I was looking for =]

 

function returnExt($file){
$extension = end(explode(".",$file));
return $extension;
}

//to call the function
$ext = returnExt("filename.jpg");
echo $ext; // will output 'jpg';

PHP:

this may be a better way