PHP Associative Array in an Indexed Array - php

Question

I have a $string:
'Name Height Weight
John 177 142
Jill 156 123
Jacob 183 157'
And I'm turning it into an $array of the following structure:
Array (
[0] => Array (
['Name'] => 'John'
['Height'] => '177'
['Weight'] => '142'
)
[1] = > Array (
['Name'] => 'Jill'
['Height'] => '156'
['Weight'] => '123'
)
[2] = > Array (
['Name'] => 'Jacob'
['Height'] => '183'
['Weight'] => '157'
)
)
Using the following code:
$rows = explode("\n",$string); //creates an indexed array of rows as strings
$headers = explode("\t",$rows[0]); //creates an indexed array of headers as strings
$rows = array_slice($rows,1); //removes headers from $rows
$array = Array();
foreach($rows as $row) {
$array[] = array_combine($headers, explode("\t",$row)); //creates associative arrays for each row
}
However, I cannot access the associative arrays inside of the indexed $array
For example, this doesn't work:
echo $array[0]['Name'];
Even though echo implode(', ', array_keys($array[0])); gives:
Name, Height, Weight
I've tried many different ways of accessing the associative arrays inside of the indexed array, but with no luck. What am I doing wrong?
EDIT:
So,
$string = "Name Height Weight
John 177 142
Jill 156 123
Jacob‌​ 183 157";
Does not work, but
$string = "Name\tHeight\tWeight\nJohn\t177\t142\nJill\t156\t123\nJacob‌​‌​\t183\t157";
does...
So I suppose the question is: What's the difference? And how would I interpret the former string as the latter?

Answer 1

Your code does not produce that array structure but it can be fixed like this:
$string = 'Name Height Weight
John 177 142
Jill 156 123
Jacob 183 157';
$rows = explode("\n",$string); //creates an indexed array of rows as strings
$headers = preg_split("#\s+#",trim($rows[0], "\n\r\t ")); //creates an indexed array of headers as strings, by splitting by any white space
var_dump($headers);
$rows = array_slice($rows,1); //removes headers from $rows
$array = Array();
foreach($rows as $row) {
$array[] = array_combine($headers, preg_split("#\s+#",trim($row, "\n\r\t "))); //creates associative arrays for each row, by splitting by any white space
}
var_dump($array);
This produces output:
array(3) {
[0]=>
string(4) "Name"
[1]=>
string(6) "Height"
[2]=>
string(6) "Weight"
}
array(3) {
[0]=>
array(3) {
["Name"]=>
string(4) "John"
["Height"]=>
string(3) "177"
["Weight"]=>
string(3) "142"
}
[1]=>
array(3) {
["Name"]=>
string(4) "Jill"
["Height"]=>
string(3) "156"
["Weight"]=>
string(3) "123"
}
[2]=>
array(3) {
["Name"]=>
string(5) "Jacob"
["Height"]=>
string(3) "183"
["Weight"]=>
string(3) "157"
}
}
The main ideas are that you must trim evey row string by any additional whitespaces and to split by the longest whitespace sequence.

Answer 2

//Use following code it will work as your answer
$string='Name Height Weight
John 177 142
Jill 156 123
Jacob 183 157';
$rows = explode("\n",$string); //creates an indexed array of rows as strings
$headers = explode("\t",$rows[0]); //creates an indexed array of headers as strings
$headers=array_filter(explode(" ",$headers[0])); ///t convert to space and filter remove empty element
$rows = array_slice($rows,1); //removes headers from $rows
$array = Array();
foreach($rows as $row) {
$row=explode("\t",$row);
$row=array_filter(explode(" ",$row[0]));
$array[] = array_combine($headers,$row); //creates associative arrays for each row
}
//print_r($array);
echo $array[0]['Name'];