Hi

Can anyone help with this question - on page 172 (chapter 5), there is a section that explains that a variable can be assigned to an index in an associated array and by doing this, the value of that index for its associated element can be returned, I know that this is is not part of the Try it outs, but would like to know how this would work when needed in the future.

Many thanks


Jamal

Well the variable may be used in the indice.

Consider the following...
Dynamic creation of form text fields.

$i = 0;

$index[$i] = $i;
$text[$i] = "First Name: ";
$name[$i] = "first_name";
$value[$i] = $_POST["first_name"];
$type[$i] = "text";

$i++;

$index[$i] = $i;
$text[$i] = "Last Name: ";
$name[$i] = "last_name";
$value[$i] = $_POST["last_name"];
$type[$i] = "text";

for ($n = 0; $n <= $i; $n++)
{
    echo "{$text[$i]}<input type='{$type[$i]}' name='{$name[$i]}' value='{$value[$i]}' /><br />\n";
}

The variable $i creates numeric indices in the arrays, and the for loop accesses the array using the last value of variable $i.


$foo = "Hello, World!";

$this_array["{$foo}"];

is the same as

$this_array["Hello, World!"];

No real limitations on this. For more information have a look at the PHP manual page on array syntax.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php

Your question was kind of vague. I hope this gives you a little more insight into what is possible!

: )
Rich




:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Smiling Souls
http://www.smilingsouls.net
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Hi Jams,
I just noticed a typo in my code

The $n variable is incremented and stopped when it is equal to the value of $i.

for ($n = 0; $n <= $i; $n++)
{
    echo "{$text[$n]}<input type='{$type[$n]}' name='{$name[$n]}' value='{$value[$n]}' /><br />\n";
}

: )
Rich

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Smiling Souls
http://www.smilingsouls.net
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Thanks Rich

I know I was a little vague, in my question - in fact I found what I was looking for further in the book, where it mentions using the Key/Current and List/Each functions to return the value assigned to the index of an associative variable. But thanks for your help and advice on this!!

Alas, I carry on....

Regards

Jamal

There are other ways to get the value of an array index. If you're looping through the entire array, I prefer to use the foreach construct instead of using while(list() = each()). It's much more readable, and probably is a little more efficient, too.

foreach($array_var as $key => $val)
{
    echo "The array index is $key and the value is $val.\n";
}

also, look at array_key(), array_keys(), and array_key_exists()
  http://www.php.net/array_key
  http://www.php.net/array_keys
  http://www.php.net/array_key_exists


Take care,

Nik
http://www.bigaction.org/