Remove first element from simple array in loop - php

Question

This question has been asked a thousand times, but each question I find talks about associative arrays where one can delete (unset) an item by using they key as an identifier. But how do you do this if you have a simple array, and no key-value pairs?
Input code
$bananas = array('big_banana', 'small_banana', 'ripe_banana', 'yellow_banana', 'green_banana', 'brown_banana', 'peeled_banana');
foreach ($bananas as $banana) {
// do stuff
// remove current item
}
In Perl I would work with for and indices instead, but I am not sure that's the (safest?) way to go - even though from what I hear PHP is less strict in these things.
Note that after foreach has run, I expected var_dump($bananas) to return an empty array (or null, but preferably an empty array).

Answer 1

1st method (delete by value comparison):
$bananas = array('big_banana', 'small_banana', 'ripe_banana', 'yellow_banana', 'green_banana', 'brown_banana', 'peeled_banana');
foreach ($bananas as $key=>$banana) {
if($banana=='big_banana')
unset($bananas[$key]);
}
2nd method (delete by key):
$bananas = array('big_banana', 'small_banana', 'ripe_banana', 'yellow_banana', 'green_banana', 'brown_banana', 'peeled_banana');
unset($bananas[0]); //removes the first value
unset($bananas[count($bananas)-1]); //removes the last value
//unset($bananas[n-1]); removes the nth value
Finally if you want to reset the keys after deletion process:
$bananas = array_map('array_values', $bananas);
If you want to empty the array completely:
unset($bananas);
$bananas= array();

Answer 2

it still has the indexes
foreach ($bananas as $key => $banana) {
// do stuff
unset($bananas[$key]);
}

Answer 3

for($i=0; $i<count($bananas); $i++)
{
//doStuff
unset($bananas[$i]);
}
This will delete every element after its use so you will eventually end up with an empty array.
If for some reason you need to reindex after deleting you can use array_values

Answer 4

How about a while loop with array_shift?
while (($item = array_shift($bananas)) !== null)
{
//
}

Answer 5

Your Note: Note that after foreach has run, I expected var_dump($bananas) to return an empty array (or null, but preferably
an empty array).
Simply use unset.
foreach ($bananas as $banana) {
// do stuff
// remove current item
unset($bananas[$key]);
}
print_r($bananas);
Result
Array
(
)

Answer 6

This question is old but I will post my idea using array_slice for new visitors.
while(!empty($bananas)) {
// ... do something with $bananas[0] like
echo $bananas[0].'<br>';
$bananas = array_slice($bananas, 1);
}