PHP Arrays

An array stores multiple values in one single variable:

What is an Array?

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.

Create an Array in PHP

In PHP, the array() function is used to create an array:

     array();

PHP Indexed Arrays

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:

Get The Length of an Array - The count() Function

The count() function is used to return the length (the number of elements) of an array:

Loop Through an Indexed Array

To loop through and print all the values of an indexed array, you could use a for loop, like this:

PHP Associative Arrays

Associative arrays are arrays that use named keys that you assign to them.

There are two ways to create an associative array: 

The named keys can then be used in a script:

Example

 

Loop Through an Associative Array

To loop through and print all the values of an associative array, you could use a foreach loop, like this: