An array stores multiple values in one single variable:

Example

What is an 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.

Create an Array in PHP

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

PHP Indexed Arrays

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:

Example

Get The Length of an Array – The count() Function

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

Example

Loop Through an Indexed Array

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

Example

PHP Associative Arrays

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:

Example

$age = array(“Peter”=>”35”, “Ben”=>”37”, “Joe”=>”43”);
echo “Peter is ” . $age[‘Peter’] . ” years old.”;
?–>

Loop Through an Associative Array

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

Example

$age = array(“Peter”=>”35”, “Ben”=>”37”, “Joe”=>”43”);

foreach($age as $x => $x_value) {
echo “Key=” . $x . “, Value=” . $x_value;
echo ”
“;
}
?–>