Please provide short reproducing script.

Closed due to missing user feedback.

-- main script --
<?php
  echo "This is the end of the script";
?>
-- prepend --
<?php
  return;
?>

  

well in fact it?s nowhere document what return() exactly
does, it seems to be possible to halt the whole script from
the gloabal scope be putting return() in it,
I don?t know whether this is intended (I think it shouldn?t
be possible to leave the global scope with it, perhaps a
e_notice or warning)

return() is defined now in prepend/append files, but isn?t
documented too...

This is a side-effect of the way zend handles things: almost everything is treated as a kind of function. include()ed files, eval()ed code, and also auto_prepended files.

This is sometimes useful, (return from an included library file for example when something is detected).

Anyway, this should be documented. Adding to the phpdoc/TODO

Fixed in CVS.