note 94813 added to control-structures.switch

I frequently use conditional logic in my work, and I use fairly large automatically filled arrays. This was getting tiresome, especially for longer matching sets: function lotsacode ($i) { switch ($i) { case 'apple': case 'pie': case 5: case 'tinned meat': echo "$i is either a number or a food.\n"; break; case 'frank': case 'chimpanzee': case 'spam': echo "$i is a monkey, or smells like one.\n"; break; } } Now, I do this: function whatIsIt ($i) { switch ($i) { case (in_array($i , array('apple','pie',5))): echo "$i is either a number or a food.\n"; break; case (in_array($i , array('frank','chimpanzee'))): echo "$i is a monkey, or smells like one.\n"; break; } } lotsacode(5); // '5 is either a number or a food.' whatIsIt('frank'); //'frank is a monkey, or smells like one.' Here's what bothers me - neither the following, nor several variants I have tried, work: $arrChoices = array('numberfood' => array('apple','pie',5) , 'monkeys' => array('frank','chimpanzee')); function notArraysWhat ($i) { switch ($i) { case (in_array($i , $arrChoices['numberfood'])): echo "$i is either a number or a food.\n"; break; case (in_array($i , $arrChoices['monkeys'])): echo "$i is a monkey, or smells like one.\n"; break; } } notArraysWhat('pie'); //Warning: in_array() expects parameter 2 to be array, null given... ---- Server IP: 64.71.164.2 Probable Submitter: 67.50.94.82 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/control-structures.switch.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/94813 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/94813/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/94813/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/94813/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/94813/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/94813/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/94813/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/94813 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/94813 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php