How can I hide previous_image_link() on first attachment page?

Question

I'm using previous_image_link() and next_image_link() to show thumbnails in my image.php template page.

I'm surrounding the thumbs with some styling, so need to be able to hide the whole previous image thumb/link block when showing the first attachment.. and the same for the next image link/thumb when displaying the last one.

How can I ascertain whether a first or last image is being displayed using core functions?

(at the moment I'm using a modified version of adjacent_image_link() that returns not echo's the gubbins, but would like a non-hacky way)

Answer 1

Use the string function instead, and print it only if you get something:

$previous = adjacent_image_link(true, 'thumbnail' );

if ( ! empty ( $previous ) )
    print 'before' . $previous . 'after';