loop error in php code - php

Question

Here is my code, and it is not removing $arr[5] element so that I am trying to remove strings starting with # from my array
this is code
<?php
$arr = [
'#EXTM3U',
'#EXTINF:177,Paul Dateh & Oren Yoel - Be More',
'Be More.mp3',
'#EXTINF:291,Christopher Toy - Just Because',
'Just Because.mp3',
'#EXTINF:238,Magnetic North - Drift Away',
'Drift Away.mp3'
];
for ($i = 0; $i <= count($arr); $i++) {
if ($arr[$i]{0} == '#') {
echo $arr[$i] . "\n";
unset($arr[$i]);
}
}
print_r($arr);
?>

Answer 1

Reason:- You are counting array length inside the loop and every time when any value got unset() from the array, length of array decreased and value of count($array) changed (simply decreased)
So logically your 5th and 6th element never goes through if condition (they never get traversed by loop because of decreasing length of the array )
Solution 1:- Put count outside and it will work properly:-
$count = count($arr);
//loop start from 0 so use < only otherwise, sometime you will get an undefined index error
for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {
if ($arr[$i]{0} == '#') {
//echo $arr[$i] . "\n";
unset($arr[$i]);
}
}
print_r($arr);
Output:-https://eval.in/996494
Solution 2:- That's why i prefer foreach() over for() loop
foreach($arr as $key=> $ar){
if ($ar[0] == '#') {
unset($arr[$key]);
}
}
print_r($arr);
Output:-https://eval.in/996502

Answer 2

more spacific :
for ($i = 0; $i < count($arr); $i++) {
if (strpos($arr[$i], '#') !== false) {
echo "<br/>";
} else {
echo $arr[$i]."<br/>";
}
}

Answer 3

Try to use additional array to push right values. You calc count($arr); each iteration and when you do count($arr); your array gets smaller and count($arr); returns smaller values, so last elements won't be comparing, try to use variable to calc count before loop make changes:
<?php
//...
$start_count = count($arr);
for ($i = 0; $i <= $start_count; $i++) {
if ($arr[$i]{0} == '#') {
echo $arr[$i] . "\n";
unset($arr[$i]);
}
}
Or remove bad element with a help of additional array, put good elements in new array and don't delete them from input array:
<?php
$arr = [
'#EXTM3U',
'#EXTINF:177,Paul Dateh & Oren Yoel - Be More',
'Be More.mp3',
'#EXTINF:291,Christopher Toy - Just Because',
'Just Because.mp3',
'#EXTINF:238,Magnetic North - Drift Away',
'Drift Away.mp3'
];
$cleared_from_mess_array = array();
for ($i = 0; $i <= count($arr); $i++) {
if ($arr[$i]{0} != '#')
{
array_push($cleared_from_mess_array,$arr[$i]);
}
}
print_r($cleared_from_mess_array);
exit;