Level: Beginner
An array is a series of elements of the same type placed in contiguous memory locations that can be individually referenced by adding an index to a unique identifier.for example, we can store 5 values of type int in an array without having to declare 5 different variables, each one with a different identifier. Instead of that, using an array we can store 5 different values of the same type, int for example, with a unique identifier.
Before going to arrays section,just go through latest posts of Devlup:
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Following i have explained about four important array functions which are very useful for beginners.
1) Sort():
This function is used to sort an array by using its key or its value .
<?php $website=array(“ labnol”,”sml”,”techiemania”,”softwarebuzzer”,”techperk”); sort($website); //sort alphabetically by value print_r($website); ?>
Output :
Array ( [0] => “labnol” [1] => ”sml” [2] => ”softwarebuzzer” [3] => ”techiemania” [4] => ”techperk” )
For associative arrays , use asort() or ksort() ,which sorts by value and key .
a) asort
<?php $website=array(“labnol” => “amit”,”linuxtree” =>”gautham”,”cybergyaan” =>”jeyaganesh”, “cyberraja” => “ramvibhakar”); //sorts on value asort($website); print_r($website); ?>
Output:
Array ( [“labnol”] => “amit” [“cyberraja”] => “ramvibhakar” [”linuxtree”] => ”gautham” [”cybergyaan”] => ”jeyaganesh” )
b) Ksort()
<?php $website=array(“labnol” => “amit”,”linuxtree” =>”gautham”,”cybergyaan” =>”jeyaganesh”, “cyberraja” => “ramvibhakar”); //sorts on key ksort($website); print_r($website); ?>
Output :
Array ( [“cyberraja”] => “ramvibhakar” [“labnol”] => “amit” [”cybergyaan”] => ”jeyaganesh” [”linuxtree”] => ”gautham” )
2) Array_reverse():
This function is used to reverse the order of given array .
<?php $websites=array("devlup","techiemania","shoutmeloud","labnol"); print_r(array_reverse($websites)); ?>
Result :
(“labnol”,”shoutmeloud”,”techiemania”,”devlup”)
3) Explode() and Implode()
Explode() is used to convert the strings into arrays ,whereas the Implode() is used to convert the arrays into strings . Let’s see the examples :
Usage of Explode():
<?php $company=" cts tcs csc patni google microsoft "; print_r(explode(" " , $company)); ?>
There are two parameters in Explode function :
1) Separator.
2) Variable (which consists of strings ).
Above i have used whitespace as separator .
Result : (“cts”,”tcs”,”csc”,”patni”,”google”,”microsoft”)
Usage of Implode():
Implode() does the opposite of Explode().It converts the arrays into strings .
This function is used to combine array elements to form a string .
<?php $company= ("cts","tcs","csc","patni","google","microsoft"); echo implode(" is " , $company); ?>
Result :
cts is tcs is csc is patni is google is microsoft
4) array_slice():
This function is used to extract subsection of an array .It acts similar to substr().
It takes three parameters .
a) array variable
b) where the extraction should start
c) number of elements which we are going to extract from an array
Lets see an example :
<?php $company=array("csc","cts","tcs","ford","hcl"); $extract=array_slice($company,0,2); print_r($extract); <?
Result : csc,cts
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Great tips!
The function array_map is really useful too.
Thanks Ricardo for sharing with us !!! I will include that in next array related article !!
Yep, I use them all the time too.
@Montreal Thanks for commenting !! Do you use any special array functions , Please share with us , it would be useful .( we will be including in the next article ).