Re: array key's: which is correct?

On 8 June 2010 16:38, Ashley Sheridan <ash@ashleysheridan.co.uk> wrote: > On Tue, 2010-06-08 at 10:35 -0400, Paul M Foster wrote: > >> On Tue, Jun 08, 2010 at 09:38:58AM -0400, Robert Cummings wrote: >> >> > Tanel Tammik wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> >> >> which one is correct or "better"? >> >> >> >> $array[3] = ''; >> >> or >> >> $array['3'] = ''; >> >> >> >> $i = 7; >> >> >> >> $array[$i] = ''; >> >> or >> >> $array["$i"] = ''; >> > >> > Sometimes it is good to illustrate the correct answer: >> > >> > <?php >> > >> > $array = array >> > ( >> >     '1'     => '1', >> >     '2'     => '2', >> >     'three' => 'three', >> >     '4.0'   => '4.0', >> >     5.0     => 5.0, >> > ); >> > >> > var_dump( array_keys( $array ) ); >> > >> > ?> >> > >> > The answer is surprising (well, not really :) and certainly advocates >> > against making literal strings of integers or manually converting a >> > string integer to a real integer or using floating point keys. >> >> Curse you, Rob Cummings! ;-} >> >> I was stunned at the results of this. I assumed that integers cast as >> strings would remain strings as indexes. Not so. And then float indexes >> cast to ints. Argh! >> >> My advice to the original poster was slightly incorrect. But I would >> still encourage you to avoid enclosing variables in double-quotes >> unnecessarily. (And integers in single-quotes for that matter.) >> >> Paul >> >> -- >> Paul M. Foster >> > > > The obvious way around this would be to include some sort of character > in the index that can't be cast to an integer, so instead of $array[1.0] > which would equate to $array[1] maybe add an underscore to make it > $array['_1.0']. It's not the prettiest of solutions, but it does mean > that indexes are kept as you intended, and you need only strip out the > first character, although I imagine a lot of string manipulation on a > large array would decrease performance. Floats in quotes are not cast to int when used as array keys. Just an FYI :) Regards Peter -- <hype> WWW: http://plphp.dk / http://plind.dk LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/plind BeWelcome/Couchsurfing: Fake51 Twitter: http://twitter.com/kafe15 </hype>