PHP Array

An array can store one or more values in a single variable name.

What is an array?

• When working with PHP, sooner or later, you might want to createmany similar variables.
•  Instead of having many similar variables, you can store the dataas elements in an array.
• Each element in the array has its own ID so that it can be easily accessed.

Types of Array:

1. Numeric Array
2. Associative Array
3. Multidimensional Array

1) Numeric Array:

• A numeric array stores each element with a numeric ID key.
• There are different ways to create a numeric array:

Example 1
In this example the ID key is automatically assigned:
$names = array("Peter","Quagmire","Joe");

Example 2
In this example we assign the ID key manually:
$names[0] = "Peter";
$names[1] = "Quagmire";
$names[2] = "Joe";



2) Associative Arrays:

• An associative array, each ID key is associated with a value.
• When storing data about specific named values, a numerical array is not always the best way to do it.
• With associative arrays we can use the values as keys and assign values to them.

Example 1
In this example we use an array to assign ages to the different persons:
$ages = array("Peter"=>32, "Quagmire"=>30, "Joe"=>34);


Example 2
This example is the same as example 1, but shows a different way of creating the array:
$ages['Peter'] = "32";
$ages['Quagmire'] = "30";
$ages['Joe'] = "34";




3) Multidimensional Arrays:

• In a multidimensional array, each element in the main array can also be an array. And each element in the sub-array can be an array, and so on.

Example
In this example we create a multidimensional array, with automatically assigned ID keys:
$families = array
(
"Griffin"=>array
(
"Peter",
"Lois",
"Megan"
),
"Quagmire"=>array
(
"Glenn"
),
"Brown"=>array
(
"Cleveland",
"Loretta",
"Junior"
)
);