Array in php

what is 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 = "Volvo";
$cars2 = "BMW";
$cars3 = "Toyota";
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();
In PHP, there are three types of arrays:

Indexed arrays - Arrays with a numeric index
Associative arrays - Arrays with named keys
Multidimensional arrays - Arrays containing one or more arrays

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

array();
In PHP, there are three types of arrays:

Indexed arrays - Arrays with a numeric index
Associative arrays - Arrays with named keys
Multidimensional arrays - Arrays containing one or more arrays

indexed array

There are two ways to create indexed arrays:

The index can be assigned automatically (index always starts at 0), like this:

$cars = array("Volvo", "BMW", "Toyota");
or the index can be assigned manually:

$cars[0] = "Volvo";
$cars[1] = "BMW";
$cars[2] = "Toyota";
The following example creates an indexed array named $cars, assigns three elements to it, and then prints a text containing the array values:

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

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

<?php
$cars = array("Volvo", "BMW", "Toyota");
echo count($cars);
?>

indexed array

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

<?php
$cars = array("Volvo", "BMW", "Toyota");
$arrlength = count($cars);

for($x = 0; $x < $arrlength; $x++) {
echo $cars[$x];
echo "<br>";
}
?>

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

There are two ways to create an associative array: 

$age = array("Peter"=>"35", "Ben"=>"37", "Joe"=>"43");
or:

$age['Peter'] = "35";
$age['Ben'] = "37";
$age['Joe'] = "43";
The named keys can then be used in a script:

<?php
$age = array("Peter"=>"35", "Ben"=>"37", "Joe"=>"43");
echo "Peter is " . $age['Peter'] . " years old.";
?>