Roberto B.

Posted on Dec 27, 2021 • Edited on Dec 29, 2021

PHP, arrays and 🥝,🍓,🍋,🥭,🍎,🍌,🍑

#php #array #tutorial

Arr class

Arr is a class for managing PHP arrays, so you can use methods to perform some common operations.

Description

Array in PHP is a basic but powerful data structure for managing a list of elements (like fruits ...).
Arrays in PHP are list of map (pair of key => value).
Usually keys are integer that start from 0 (first element has position/index 0, the second one has position/index 1 etc...).
In this case, arrays are treated like an indexed array.
But keys could be "named" (integer, string...). In this case, arrays are treated like an associative array.
For example:

['🍎', '🍌'] : is an array with 2 elements, the first one with index 0 and the second one with index 1;
['apple' => '🍎', 'banana' => '🍌']: is an array with 2 elements with the same values as the previous one, but different indexes. In this case, the index 'apple' is related with value '🍎', the index 'banana' is related with value '🍌'.

The package

We created a small open source package for managing arrays (trying to mimic some functionalities of Javascript array Object).

The source code: https://github.com/Hi-Folks/array
The Package: https://packagist.org/packages/hi-folks/array
The documentation: https://github.com/Hi-Folks/array/blob/main/doc/readme.md
The list of method already implemented and the methods that we are going to implement: https://github.com/Hi-Folks/array/blob/main/doc/readme.md
A cheat sheet: https://github.com/Hi-Folks/array/blob/main/examples/cheatsheet.php

Install the package

To install the package, you can use composer as usual:

composer require hi-folks/array

In your script, you can include autoload.php file, generated by composer (unless you are using a framework that includes autmatically autolload.php file):

require("./vendor/autoload.php");

Then you can include your class:

use HiFolks\DataType\Arr;

Create an array

You can create a list of fruits (using Arr class) with static method make() and then you can access to all Arr object methods, for example length():

use HiFolks\DataType\Arr;
$fruits = Arr::make(['🍎', '🍌']);
echo $fruits->length();
// Output: 2

Access an array element using the index position

Even if you are using Arr class, you can access to the element with square brackets [] like with PHP standard array:

$fruits[0];
$fruits[ $fruits->length() - 1];

use HiFolks\DataType\Arr;
// Create an array
$fruits = Arr::make(['🍎', '🍌']);
// First element
$first = $fruits[0];
echo $first;
// 🍎
echo PHP_EOL . "--~--" . PHP_EOL;
// Last element
$last = $fruits[ $fruits->length() - 1];
echo $last;
// 🍌
echo PHP_EOL . "--~--" . PHP_EOL;

Loop over an array

If you need to walk through an array, you can use forEach() method.
You can specify the function as argument of forEach() method in order to manage each single element (with key)

use HiFolks\DataType\Arr;
// Create an array
$fruits = Arr::make([
    'kiwi' =>'🥝',
    'fragola' => '🍓',
    'lemon' => '🍋',
    'mango' => '🥭',
    'apple' => '🍎',
    'banana' => '🍌']);
// Loop over an array
$fruits->forEach(function ($element, $key) {
    echo $key . " " . $element . "; ";
});
// kiwi 🥝; fragola 🍓; lemon 🍋; mango 🥭; apple 🍎; banana 🍌;

Add an element to the end

Add an item to the end of an array with push() method:

use HiFolks\DataType\Arr;
// Create some fruits
$fruits = Arr::make(['🥝','🍓','🍋','🥭','🍎','🍌']);
// Push a new fruit (peach)
$fruits->push('🍑');
// Loop over fruits
$fruits->forEach(function ($element, $key) {
    echo $key . " " . $element . PHP_EOL;
});

echo PHP_EOL . "--~--" . PHP_EOL;

Remove an element from the end of array

Get and remove element from the end of the array with pop() method:

use HiFolks\DataType\Arr;
// Create some fruits
$fruits = Arr::make(['🥝','🍓','🍋','🥭','🍎','🍌']);
// pop (retrieve and remove) last elements
$last = $fruits->pop();
$secondLast = $fruits->pop();
// Loop over fruits
$fruits->forEach(function ($element, $key) {
    echo $key . " " . $element . PHP_EOL;
});
echo "Last fruit: " . $last . PHP_EOL; // banana
echo "Second last fruit: " . $secondLast . PHP_EOL; // apple

Remove an element from the beginning of the array

Get and remove the first element from the beginning of the array with shift() method:

use HiFolks\DataType\Arr;
// Create some fruits
$fruits = Arr::make(['🥝','🍓','🍋','🥭','🍎','🍌']);
// pop (retrieve and remove) last elements
first = $fruits->first();
// Loop over fruits
$fruits->forEach(function ($element, $key) {
    echo $key . " " . $element . PHP_EOL;
});
echo "First fruit: " . $first . PHP_EOL; // kiwi

Add a new element to the beginning of the array

Add a new element to the beginning of the array with unshift() method:

use HiFolks\DataType\Arr;
// Create some fruits
$fruits = Arr::make(['🥝','🍓','🍋','🥭','🍎','🍌']);
// add a new fruit (peach) before other fruits
$fruits->unshift('🍑');
// Loop over fruits
$fruits->forEach(function ($element, $key) {
    echo $key . " " . $element . PHP_EOL;
});
echo PHP_EOL . "--~--" . PHP_EOL;

Recap add and remove elements

Method	Operation	Where	Description
push()	add element	to the end	Add an item to the end of an array
pop()	remove element	from the end	Get and remove element from the end of the array
shift()	remove element	from the begin	Get and remove the first element from the beginning of the array
unshift()	add element	to the begin	Add a new element to the beginning of the array

Find the index of an element in the array

To find the index of an element you can use indexOf() method:

use HiFolks\DataType\Arr;
// Create some fruits
$fruits = Arr::make(['🥝','🍓','🍋','🥭','🍎','🍌']);
echo "All fruits:" . $fruits->join(",") . PHP_EOL;
// All fruits:🥝,🍓,🍋,🥭,🍎,🍌
// Find the index of an item in the Array
$pos = $fruits->indexOf('🍎');
echo "Find 🍎 at position: " . $pos . PHP_EOL;
// Find 🍎 at position: 4

Remove an element by index position

After last example ($pos === 4), you can remove an element with splice() method, using $pos and the amount of elements as arguments.
In this case, if you want to remove just one fruit (the apple) at position 4:

$removedFruits = $fruits->splice($pos, 1);
echo "Removed fruits: " . $removedFruits->join(",") . PHP_EOL;
echo "Remaining fruits:" . $fruits->join(",") . PHP_EOL;
// Removed fruits: 🍎
// Remaining fruits:🥝,🍓,🍋,🥭,🍌

Remove elements from an index position

If you want to remove more elements (for example 10) from position 1:

// Remove items from an index position
$removedFruits = $fruits->splice(1, 10);
echo "Removed fruits: " . $removedFruits->join(",") . PHP_EOL;
echo "Remaining fruits:" . $fruits->join(",") . PHP_EOL;
// Removed fruits: 🍓,🍋,🥭,🍌
// Remaining fruits:🥝

Copy an array

You can use splice() method for copying (cloning) an array, with 0 as position and the length of the array as the amount of elements:

$some = $removedFruits->slice(0, $removedFruits->length());
echo "Some Fruits: " . $some->join(",") . PHP_EOL;
// Some Fruits: 🍓,🍋,🥭,🍌

Some notes

The methods listed in this article, are methods that mimic the behaviour of Javascript Array Object.
We are adding some new method as "shortcut" or "helper".

If you want to request a new method for managing array, feel free to ask, we will try to implement and add it.

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