get value from php multidimensional array - php

Question

In the following array I have the number of days as the first value and the number of hours as the second value:
$myoptions = array (
array("1 day",24),
array("2 days",48),
array("3 days",72)
);
To get the second item from the array, I just do the following:
echo $myoptions[0][1]; // returns 48
So what can I do to search the array index above using one of the value? Let's say I need to know what is the number of hours for array = '3 days'.

Answer 1

You can use array_column like as
echo array_column($myoptions,1,0)['3 days'];//72
Demo

Answer 2

It's not likely that the array you showed us is really what you're after.
PHP's arrays are so-called associative arrays, meaning that you can use anything to index them, not just numbers:
$myoptions = array(
"1 day" => 24,
"2 days" => 48,
"3 days" => 72,
);
So,
echo $myoptions["3 days"]
or
$days = "3 days";
echo $myoptions[$days];
would directly return what you need. Of course, in real life applications, you would need to make sure that your input matches one of the indexes of the array.
Actually, but this is not something we can decide without knowing what you try to accomplish but in most cases you really need the opposite:
$myoptions = array(
24 => "1 day",
48 => "2 days",
72 => "3 days",
);
That is, your program stores and uses the numeric part, the number of hours internally, and whenever you need to display the option it represents to the user, you do the conversion to the human readable format, not the other way around.

Answer 3

There are probably better ways to design that array, but here's a function that should give you what you asked for:
function gethours($x, $myoptions){
foreach($myoptions as $o){
if($o[0] == $x){
return $o[1];
}
}
}
echo gethours('3 days', $myoptions);
If the column you search in is always the same you could just go for an associative array and use that column as array keys.