Arrays
An array is a data structure that stores one or more values in a single value.
Studying an example should make us understand array more.
$student_array[1] = "Sam";
$student_array[2] = "Charlie";
$student_array[3] = "Clive";
In the above example we use a single variable "$student_array".
We made use of the key / value structure of an array.
The keys were the numbers we specified in the array and the values were the names of the peoples.
Each key of an array represents a value that we can manipulate and reference.
The general form for setting the key of an array equal to a value is:
If we wanted to reference the values that we stored into our array, the following PHP code would get the job done.
. $employee_array[0] . " & " . $employee_array[1];
echo "
Two more employees of mine are "
. $employee_array[2] . " & " . $employee_array[3];
Two more employees of mine are Charlie & Clare
There is another way of specifing an array, we called it an associative array.
Instead of using number as the key of an array, some descriptive name can be used as a key.
See the example below:-
$salaries["Sally"] = 4000;
$salaries["Charlie"] = 600;
$salaries["Clare"] = 0;
echo "Bob is being paid - $" . $salaries["Bob"] . "
";
echo "Sally is being paid - $" . $salaries["Sally"] . "
";
echo "Charlie is being paid - $" . $salaries["Charlie"] . "
";
echo "Clare is being paid - $" . $salaries["Clare"];
Sally is being paid - $4000
Charlie is being paid - $600
Clare is being paid - $0
Usefulness of arrays will become clearer when we gets to for, loops and while loops statements.
Note For more detail please see Php Manual at http://www.php.net