note 105178 deleted from function.in-array by cmb

Note Submitter: Ray dot Paseur at Gmail dot com ---- Be VERY careful about testing for strings in arrays that might also contain integers. In this snippet, the range() function turns the numeric values into integers, and loose data typing finds a match with zero. Outputs: PHP in_array() FOUND @#%?!! @#%?!! == 0 AT POSITION 26 BECAUSE OF LOOSE TYPE <?php // RAY_temp_in_array.php error_reporting(E_ALL); echo "<pre>"; // THE ALLOWABLE SELECTIONS $alpha = range('A','Z'); $alpha = array_merge($alpha, range('0', '9')); // LOOK FOR A BOGUS SELECTION $str = '@#%?!!'; if (in_array($str, $alpha)) { echo "PHP in_array() FOUND $str "; } else { echo "$str IS NOT IN ARRAY"; } // SEARCH THE ARRAY FOR THE KEY OF THE STRING $key = array_search($str, $alpha); echo "<br/>$str == $alpha[$key] AT POSITION $key"; if ($str == 0) echo " BECAUSE OF LOOSE TYPE"; ?>