An array stores multiple values in one single variable:
An array is a special variable, which can hold more than one value at a time.
If you have a list of items (a list of car names, for example), storing the cars in single variables could look like this:
$cars1 = "Cars";
$cars2 = "Bikes";
$cars3 = "Bus";
However, what if you want to loop through the cars and find a specific one? And what if you had not 3 cars, but 300?
The solution is to create an array!
An array can hold many values under a single name, and you can access the values by referring to an index number.
In PHP, the array()
function is used to create an array:
array();
There are two ways to create indexed arrays:
The index can be assigned automatically (index always starts at 0), like this:
$vehicles = array("Cars", "Bikes", "Bus");
or the index can be assigned manually:
$cars[0] = "Cars";
$cars[1] = "Bikes";
$cars[2] = "Bus";
The following example creates an indexed array named $cars, assigns three elements to it, and then prints a text containing the array values:
The count()
function is used to return the length (the number of elements) of an array:
To loop through and print all the values of an indexed array, you could use a for
loop, like this:
Associative arrays are arrays that use named keys that you assign to them.
There are two ways to create an associative array:
or:
$age['Peter'] = "35";
$age['Ben'] = "37";
$age['Joe'] = "43";
The named keys can then be used in a script:
To loop through and print all the values of an associative array, you could use a foreach
loop, like this:
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