Laravel get element of array by key - php

Question

I have array of objects users. Entity User has two fields: firstName and lastName;
In my controller I add all users to the some array which called employees.
$employees = array();
foreach($users as $user) {
$employees[] = $user->firstName;
}
How can i get on the view element of array by firstName.
I tried like this:
$employees['John'] but it doesn't work
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

The way that you are doing it you are just appending a string to an array. The keys of the array will be integers starting from 0.
To get the user first name as the index, set the Key of the $employees array to be the $user->firstName, then in that position store the object of the $user. Here is the code fixed:
$employees = array();
foreach($users as $user) {
$employees[$user->firstName] = $user;
}
After that you should be able to do $employees['John'].
Remember that to be able to use the array in the View you must pass the array to the view. Ex:
In your controller method you should have something like this:
return View::make('nameOfFile')->with('employees', $employees);

Answer 2

When you add the names to the array you will have something like this:
array(
[0] => "John",
[1] => "Martha",
...
)
You need to access the names by index and I would not suggest having name in the index, what if two users have the same name? You'll end up overwriting one in the array:
Array("John", "John", "Martha")
After having an array with the key as name you end up with:
Array(
[John] => someUser, // <- here you lost one John.
[Martha] => SomeUser,
)

Answer 3

You are appending to an ordinary array, which means that the array keys will automatically be integers in increasing order starting at zero. Suppose we have the "Alice" and "Bob" in the $users array, you code will yield an $employees array with two elements : $employees[Ø] = "Alice" and $employees[1] = "Bob".
To get the result you want you need to use the $user->firstName value as a key:
$employees = array();
foreach ($users as $user) {
$employees[$user->FirstName] = $user->firstName;
}
Although that wouldn't be very useful, I think what you actually meant to get is:
$employees = array();
foreach ($users as $user) {
// use the whole object for this user, not only the firstName field
$employees[$user->FirstName] = $user;
}