PHP 5 Arrays

An array in PHP is actually an ordered map. A map is a type that associates values to keys. This type is optimized for several different uses; it can be treated as an array, list (vector), hash table (an implementation of a map), dictionary, collection, stack, queue, and probably more. As array values can be other arrays, trees and multidimensional arrays are also possible.

Explanation of those data structures is beyond the scope of this manual, but at least one example is provided for each of them. For more information, look towards the considerable literature that exists about this broad topic.

Example -

<?php $cars = array("Volvo", "BMW", "Toyota"); echo "I like " . $cars[0] . ", " . $cars[1] . " and " . $cars[2] . "."; ?>

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An array is a data structure that stores one or more similar type of values in a single value. For example if you want to store 100 numbers then instead of defining 100 variables its easy to define an array of 100 length.

There are three different kind of arrays and each array value is accessed using an ID c which is called array index.

Numeric array − An array with a numeric index. Values are stored and accessed in linear fashion.

Associative array − An array with strings as index. This stores element values in association with key values rather than in a strict linear index order.

Multidimensional array − An array containing one or more arrays and values are accessed using multiple indices

Numeric Array

These arrays can store numbers, strings and any object but their index will be represented by numbers. By default array index starts from zero.

Example -

<?php /* First method to create array. */ $numbers = array( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5); foreach( $numbers as $value ) { echo "Value is $value <br />"; } /* Second method to create array. */ $numbers[0] = "one"; $numbers[1] = "two"; $numbers[2] = "three"; $numbers[3] = "four"; $numbers[4] = "five"; foreach( $numbers as $value ) { echo "Value is $value <br />"; } ?>

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Associative Arrays

The associative arrays are very similar to numeric arrays in term of functionality but they are different in terms of their index. Associative array will have their index as string so that you can establish a strong association between key and values.

To store the salaries of employees in an array, a numerically indexed array would not be the best choice. Instead, we could use the employees names as the keys in our associative array, and the value would be their respective salary.

Example -

<?php /* First method to associate create array. */ $salaries = array("mohammad" => 2000, "qadir" => 1000, "zara" => 500); echo "Salary of mohammad is ". $salaries['mohammad'] . "<br />"; echo "Salary of qadir is ". $salaries['qadir']. "<br />"; echo "Salary of zara is ". $salaries['zara']. "<br />"; /* Second method to create array. */ $salaries['mohammad'] = "high"; $salaries['qadir'] = "medium"; $salaries['zara'] = "low"; echo "Salary of mohammad is ". $salaries['mohammad'] . "<br />"; echo "Salary of qadir is ". $salaries['qadir']. "<br />"; echo "Salary of zara is ". $salaries['zara']. "<br />"; ?>

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Multidimensional Arrays

A multi-dimensional array each element in the main array can also be an array. And each element in the sub-array can be an array, and so on. Values in the multi-dimensional array are accessed using multiple index.

Example -

<?php $marks = array( "mohammad" => array ( "physics" => 35, "maths" => 30, "chemistry" => 39 ), "qadir" => array ( "physics" => 30, "maths" => 32, "chemistry" => 29 ), "zara" => array ( "physics" => 31, "maths" => 22, "chemistry" => 39 ) ); /* Accessing multi-dimensional array values */ echo "Marks for mohammad in physics : " ; echo $marks['mohammad']['physics'] . "<br />"; echo "Marks for qadir in maths : "; echo $marks['qadir']['maths'] . "<br />"; echo "Marks for zara in chemistry : " ; echo $marks['zara']['chemistry'] . "<br />"; ?>

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