PHP Bible-09

PHP
Arrays and Array

Functions
Formulated:
Saniat Obaidullah
Zend Certified Engineer
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PHP Bible, 2nd Edition 1  Wiley and the book authors, 2002
Summary
 How arrays work in PHP

 Using multidimensional arrays
 Imitating other data structures with arrays
 Sorting and other transformations
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Uses of Arrays
 Arrays are definitely one of the coolest and most flexible
features of PHP. Unlike vector arrays from other languages (C,
C++, etc.), PHP arrays can store data of varied types and
automatically organize it for you in a large variety of ways.
 Some of the ways arrays are used in PHP include:
 Built-in PHP environment variables are in the form of arrays (e.g.
$_POST)
 Most database functions transport their info via arrays, making a
compact package of an arbitrary chunk of data
 It's easy to pass entire sets of HTML form arguments from one
page to another in a single array
 Arrays make nice containers for doing manipulations (sorting,
counting, etc.) of any data you develop while executing a single
page's script
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What are PHP arrays
 PHP arrays are associative arrays with a little extra thrown in.
 The associative part means that arrays store element values in
association with key values, rather than in a strict linear index
order
 If you store an element in an array, in association with a key, all
you need to retrieve it later from that array is the key value
 $state_location['San_Mateo'] = 'California';
 $state = $state_location['San_Mateo'];
 If you want to associate a numerical ordering with a bunch of
values or just store a list of values, all you have to do is use
integers as your key values
 $my_array[1] = 'The first thing';
 $my_array[2] = 'The second thing';
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Associative vs. vector arrays
 In vector arrays (like those used in C/C++), the contained
elements all need to be of the same type, and usually the
language compiler needs to know in advance how many such
elements there are likely to be
 double my_array[100]; // this is C
 Consequently, vector arrays are very fast for storage and lookup
since the program knows the exact location of each element and
they are stored in a contiguous block of memory
 PHP arrays are associative (and may be referred to as hashes)
 Rather than having a fixed number of slots, PHP creates array
slots as new elements are added to the array and elements can
be of any PHP type
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Creating arrays
 There are 4 main ways to create arrays in PHP
 Direct assignment
 Simply act as though a variable is already an array and assign a
value into it
$my_array[1] = 1001;
 The array() construct
 Creates a new array from the specification of its elements and
associated keys
 Can be called with no arguments to create an empty array (e.g. to
pass into functions which require an array argument)
 Can also pass in a comma-separated list of elements to be stored and
the indices will be automatically created beginning with 0
$fruit_basket = array('apple','orange','banana','pear');
o Where $fruit_basket[0] == 'apple', $fruit_basket[1] == 'orange', etc.
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Creating arrays (cont.)
 Specifying indices using array()
 If you want to create arrays in the previous manner but specify the
indices used, instead of simply separating the values with commas,
you supply key-value pairs separated by commas where the key and
the value are separated by the special symbol =>
$fruit_basket = array ('red' => 'apple',
'orange' => 'orange',
'yellow' => 'banana',
'green' => 'pear');
 Functions returning arrays
 You can write your own function which returns an array or use one
of the built-in PHP functions which return an array and assign it to a
variable
$my_array = range(6,10);
o Is equivalent to
$my_array = array(6,7,8,9,10);
o Where $my_array[0] == 6;
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Retrieving values
 The most direct way to retrieve a value is to use its index
 If we have stored a value in $my_array at index 5, then
$my_array[5] will retrieve that value. If nothing had been stored
at index 5 or if $my_array had not been assigned, $my_array[5]
will behave as an unbound variable
 The list() construct is used to assign several array elements
to variables in succession
$fruit_basket = array('apple','orange','banana');
list($red_fruit,$orange_fruit) = $fruit_basket;
 The variables in list() will be assigned the elements of the
array in the order they were originally stored in the array
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Multidimensional arrays
 The arrays we have looked at so far are one-dimensional in that
they only require a single key for assigning or retrieving values
 PHP can easily support multiple-dimensional arrays, with
arbitrary numbers of keys
 Just like one-dimensional arrays, there is no need to declare our
intensions in advance, you can just assign values to the index
$multi_array[1][2][3][4][5] = 'deep treasure';
 Which will create a five-dimensional array with successive keys that
happen, in this case, to be five successive integers

 It may be easier to consider that the values stored in arrays can
themselves be arrays.
$multi_level[0] = array(1,2,3,4,5);
 Where $multi_level[0][0] == 1 and $multi_level[0][1] == 2
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Multidimensional arrays (cont.)
$cornucopia = array('fruit' => array('red' => 'apple',
'orange' => 'orange',
'yellow' => 'banana',
'green' => 'pear'),
'flower' => array('red' => 'rose',
'yellow' =>
'sunflower',
'purple' => 'iris'));
$kind_wanted = 'flower';
$color_wanted = 'purple';
print("The $color_wanted $kind_wanted is
{$cornucopia[$kind_wanted][$color_wanted]}");
 Would print the message "The purple flower is iris"

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Inspecting arrays
 Simple functions for inspecting arrays
Function Behavior
is_array() Takes a single argument of any type and returns a true
value if the argument is an array, false otherwise
count()/sizeof() Takes an array as an argument and returns the number
of nonempty elements in the array (1 for strings & #s)
in_array() Takes 2 arguments, the element you are looking for
and the array it may be in. If the element is contained
as a value in the array, it returns true, otherwise false
IsSet($array[$key]) Takes an array[key] form and returns true if the key
portion is a valid key for the array
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Deleting from arrays
 Deleting an element from an array is just like getting rid of an
assigned variable calling the unset() construct
unset($my_array[2]);
unset($my_other_array['yellow']);
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Iteration
 Iteration constructs provide techniques for dealing with array
elements in bulk by letting us step or loop through arrays,
element by element or key by key
 In addition to storing values in association with their keys, PHP
arrays silently build an ordered list of the key/value pairs that
are stored, in the order that they are stored for operations that
iterate over the entire contents of the array
 Each array remembers a particular stored key/value pair as
being the current one, and array iteration functions work in part
by shifting that current marker through the internal list of keys
and values
 This is commonly referred to as the iteration pointer, although
PHP does not support full pointers in the sense that C/C++
programmers may be used to
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Our favorite iteration method: foreach
 Our favorite construct for looping through an array is foreach which is
somewhat related to Perl's foreach, although it has a different syntax
 There are 2 flavors of the foreach statement
 foreach (array_expression as $value_var)
 loops over the array given by array_expression. On each loop, the value of
the current element is assigned to $value_var and the internal array pointer
is advanced by one (so on the next loop, you'll be looking at the next
element)
 foreach (array_expression as $key_var => $value_var)
 does the same thing, except that the current element's key will be assigned to
the variable $key_var on each loop
 array_expression can be any expression which evaluates to an array
 When foreach first starts executing, the internal array pointer is
automatically reset to the first element of the array. This means that you do
not need to call reset() before a foreach loop
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foreach example
 If you would like to see each of the variables names and values
sent to a PHP script via the POST method, you can utilize the
foreach construct to loop through the $_POST array
print ('<TABLE><TR><TH>Name</TH>'.
'<TH>Value</TH></TR>');
foreach ($_POST as $input_name => $value)
{
print ("<TR><TH>$input_name</TH>".
"<TD>$value</TD></TR>\n");
}
print ('</TABLE>');
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Iterating with current() and next()
 foreach is useful in situations where you want to simply loop through an
array's values
 For more control, you can utilize current() and next()
 The current() function returns the stored value that the current array
pointer is pointing to
 When an array is newly created with elements, the element pointed to
will always be the first element added

 The next() function advances the array pointer and then returns the
current value pointed to
 If the pointer is already pointing to the last stored value, the function
returns false
 If false is a value stored in the array, next will return false even if it has
not reached the end of the array

 To return the array pointer to the first element in the array, use the
reset() function
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Reverse order with end() and prev()
 Analogous to reset() (which sets the array pointer to the
beginning of the array) and next() (which sets the array
pointer to the next element in the array and returns its value) are
end() and prev()
 end() moves the pointer to the last element in the array and
returns its value
 prev() moves the pointer to the previous element in the array
and returns its value
 Another function designed to work with iterating through arrays
is the key() function which returns the associated key from
the current array pointer
 Note: when passing an array to a function - just like other variables -
only a copy of the array is passed, not the original. Subsequent
modifications to the array's values or its pointer will be lost once the
function returns unless the array is passed by reference
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Empty values and the each() function
 One problem with utilizing the next function to determine when
the end of the array has been reached is if a false value or a
value which is evaluated to be false has been stored in the array
$my_array = array(1000,100,0,10,1);
print (current($my_array));
while ($current_value = next($my_array))
print ($current_value);
 Will stop executing when reaching the third element of the array
 The each() function is similar to next() except that it
returns an array of information instead of the value stored at the
next location in the loop. Additionally, the each() function
returns the information for where the pointer is currently
located before incrementing the pointer
 The each() function returns the following information in an array
Key 0/'key': the current key at the array pointer

 Key 1/'value': the current value at the array pointer

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each() example
 To use each to iterate through the $_POST array:
print ('<TABLE><TR><TH>Name</TH>'.
'<TH>Value</TH></TR>');
reset ($_POST);
while ($current = each($_POST))
{
print ("<TR><TH>{$current['key']}</TH>".
"<TD>{$current['value']}</TD></TR>\n");
}
print ('</TABLE>');
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Transformations of arrays
 PHP offers a host of functions for manipulating your data once
you have nicely stored it in an array
 The functions in this section have in common is that they take
your array, do something with it, and return the results in another
array

array array_keys (array input [,mixed search_value])
returns the keys, numeric and string, from the input array.
 If the optional search_value is specified, then only the keys for
that value are returned. Otherwise, all the keys from the input are
returned.

array array_values ( array input) returns all the values from
the input array and indexes numerically the array
 Simply returns the original array without the keys
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More array transformation functions
 array array_count_values ( array input) returns an array
using the values of the input array as keys and their frequency in input as
values
 In other words, array_count_values takes an array as input and
returns a new array where the values from the original array are the keys
for the new array and the values are the number of times each old value
occurred in the original array
 array array_flip ( array trans) returns an array in flip order,
i.e. keys from trans become values and values from trans become keys
 Although array keys are guaranteed to be unique, array values are not.
Consequently, any duplicate values in the original array become the

same key in the new array (only the latest of the original keys will
survive to become the new values)
 The array values also have to be integers or strings. If values which
cannot be converted to keys are encountered, the function will fail and a
warning will be issues
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More array transformation functions
 array array_reverse ( array array [, bool
preserve_keys]) takes input array and returns a new array with the
order of the elements reversed, preserving the keys if preserve_keys is
TRUE
 void shuffle ( array array) shuffles (randomizes the order of
the elements in) an array
 Note: calls to srand prior to shuffle is no longer necessary
 Unlike most functions, shuffle actually modifies the original array
and does not return a value

 array array_merge ( array array1, array array2 [,
array ...]) merges the elements of two or more arrays together so that
the values of one are appended to the end of the previous one. It returns the
resulting array
 If the input arrays have the same string keys, then the later value for that
key will overwrite the previous one. If, however, the arrays contain
numeric keys, the later value will not overwrite the original value, but
will be appended
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Sorting
 PHP offers a host of functions for sorting arrays
 As we saw earlier, a tension sometimes arises between respecting the
key/value associations in an array and treating numerical keys as

ordering info that should be changed when the order changes
 PHP offers variants of the sorting functions for each of these behaviors
and also allows sorting in ascending or descending order and by user-

supplied ordering functions
 Conventions used in naming the sorting functions include:
 An initial a means that the function sorts by value but maintains the
association between key/value pairs the way it was

 An initial k means that it sorts by key but maintains the key/value
associations
 A lack of an initial a or k means that it sorts by value but doesn’t
maintain the key/value association (e.g. numerical keys will be

renumbered to reflect the new ordering
 An r before the sort means that the sorting order will be reversed
 An initial u means that a second argument is expected: the name of a
user-defined function that specifies the ordering of any two elements

that are being sorted
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Array sorting functions
Function Behavior
asort() Takes a single array argument. Sorts the key/value pairs by value but keeps the
key/value relationship the same
arsort() Same as asort but sorts in descending order
ksort() Takes a single array argument. Sorts the key/value pairs by key but maintains the
key/value relationships
krsort() Same as ksort but in descending order
sort() Takes a single array argument. Sorts the key/value pairs of an array by their values.
Keys may be renumbered to reflect the new ordering of the values
rsort() Same as sort but in descending order
uasort() Sorts key/value pairs by value using a comparison function as the second argument
which returns a negative number if its first argument is before the second, a positive
number if the first argument comes after the second, and 0 if the elements are the
same
uksort() Same as uasort but sorts by the keys rather than the values
usort() Same as uasort but key/value associations are not maintained
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Printing functions for arrays (debugging)
 bool print_r ( mixed expression [, bool return]) displays
information about a variable in a way that's readable by
humans. If given a string, integer or float, the value itself will
be printed. If given an array, values will be presented in a
format that shows keys and elements. Similar notation is used
for objects. print_r() and var_export() will also show
protected and private properties of objects with PHP 5, on the
contrary to var_dump().
 Remember that print_r() will move the array pointer to the end.
Use reset() to bring it back to beginning
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PHP

Arrays and Array

 How arrays work in PHP

happen, in this case, to be five successive integers

 Would print the message "The purple flower is iris"

will always be the first element added

not reached the end of the array

 Key 1/'value': the current value at the array pointer

Consequently, any duplicate values in the original array become the

 Unlike most functions, shuffle actually modifies the original array

and does not return a value

key/value associations in an array and treating numerical keys as

and also allows sorting in ascending or descending order and by user-

association between key/value pairs the way it was

maintain the key/value association (e.g. numerical keys will be

 An initial u means that a second argument is expected: the name of a

user-defined function that specifies the ordering of any two elements

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