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Safely and easily call functions that may not be available (such as those provided by a plugin that gets deactivated).

Assuming you had something like this in a template:

<?php list_cities( 'Texas', 3 ); ?>

If you deactivated the plugin that provided list_cities(), your site would generate an error when that template is accessed.

You can instead use _sfc(), which is provided by this plugin to call other functions, like so:

<?php _sfc( 'list_cities', 'Texas', 3 ); ?>

That will simply do nothing if the list_cities() function is not available.

If you'd rather display a message when the function does not exist, use _sfcm() instead, like so:

<?php _sfcm( 'list_cities', 'The cities listing is temporarily disabled.', 'Texas', 3 ); ?>

In this case, if list_cities() is not available, the text "The cities listing is temporarily disabled." will be displayed.

If you'd rather call another function when the function does not exist, use _sfcf() instead, like so:

<?php
    function unavailable_function_handler( $function_name ) { echo "The function $function_name is not available."; }
    _sfcf( 'nonexistent_function', 'unavailable_function_handler' );
?>

In the event you want to safely call a function and echo its value, you can use _sfce() like so:

<?php _sfce( 'largest_city', 'Tx' ); ?>

Which is roughly equivalent to doing :

<?php if function_exists( 'largest_city' ) { echo largest_city( 'Tx' ); } ?>

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