push into array while it is being looped - php

Here's a snippet of my code. I understand that it is generally advised against to modify an array whilst it is being looped, however in this scenario I think it is the right thing to do and saves resources.
$levels = array($post);
foreach ($levels as $level) {
$next_sibling = get_next_sibling_page($level);
if ($next_sibling) {
$next_page = $next_sibling;
break 1;
} else if ($level->post_parent) {
array_push($levels, get_page($level->post_parent));
}
}
The idea is that the foreach would reiterate with the pushed value if ($level->post_parent), I can see that the if statement is resolving to true and the array is being pushed to however the foreach does not reiterate and only runs the one time.
Does anyone know how I can recursively continue my foreach until $level->post_parent resolves to false?

To modify array which is being used in foreach pass array by referance.
foreach (&$levels as $level) {
.....
}

Related

Is it safe to append to an array in a while loop?

There are numerous questions out there about the safety implications of manipulating an array when using foreach on it. I can't find any questions on doing this in a while loop, though.
So I wonder, is it safe to do this? Below is an example script in PHP and I'm not sure if this is alright.
while ($item = array_pop($array)) {
findMoreItems($item, $array);
}
function findMoreItems($item, &$array) {
// Returns null if no more items are found
$newItem = someFuncFromServer($item);
if ($newItem) {
array_push($array, $newItem);
}
}
By safe I mean: can I be sure that no items are skipped in the loop?
Your code is essentially equivalent to :
$item = array_pop($array);
while ($item) {
findMoreItems($item, $array);
$item = array_pop($array)
}
function findMoreItems($item, &$array) {
// Returns null if no more items are found
$newItem = someFuncFromServer($item);
if ($newItem) {
array_push($array, $newItem);
}
}
Now if you rewrite this in the above way it is obvious that the code will not do anything like copy references or array points or anything like that which is what foreach does. foreach does that because it relies on the internal array pointer which array_pop and array_push do not.

PHP Array push in loop doesn't change the array outside of the loop

I've encountered the following problem:
private function getMyThemeIds($collection){
$result = [];
...
foreach ($results as $doc) {
file_put_contents('2.txt', $doc->getUnid()); //everything is fine here
$result[] = $doc->getUnid();
file_put_contents('3.txt', print_r($result,true)); //again, array is just fine, barely 4000 entries
}
file_put_contents('4.txt', print_r($result,true)); // but here we see what was in this array right after initialization. Nothing in this case.
return $result;
}
I've tried different approaches - changed foreach to for, $result[] to array_push, etc with no avail. Anybody knows what the cause of this may be?
You can initialize array using 'array()'.Please follow below statment to initialize array
$result = array();
After initialize $result you can append data to it.
You can refer following link for array initialization-
http://www.w3schools.com/php/func_array.asp
Please see the file_put_contents for details. You can try this.
private function getMyThemeIds($collection){
$result = array();
...
foreach ($results as $doc) {
file_put_contents('2.txt', $doc->getUnid()); //everything is fine here
$result[] = $doc->getUnid();
file_put_contents('3.txt', serialize($result)); //again, array is just fine, barely 4000 entries
}
file_put_contents('4.txt', serialize($result)); // but here we see what was in this array right after initialization. Nothing in this case.
return $result;
}

(Why) should I test if an array is empty prior to a for loop?

Given an empty array $items = array();
Why should I use the following code (which I've seen used before):
if (count($items) > 0) {
foreach ($items as $item) // do stuff here
}
instead of just
foreach ($items as $item) // do stuff here
If count($items) === 0 the loop won't execute anyway??
You don't generally need to do the check. I see lots of code with that check, but it's often unnecessary, and I think it's usually due to ignorance on the part of the programmer. A similar pattern that I frequently see is after database queries:
if (mysqli_num_rows($stmt) > 0) {
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($stmt)) {
...
}
}
This test is also unnecessary; if no rows were found, the first fetch will return false, and the loop will stop.
The only case where it's useful is if you want to tell the user that there were no results, instead of just displaying an empty table. So you might do:
if (count($items) > 0) {
echo "<table>";
foreach ($items as $item) {
// display table row
}
echo "</table>";
} else {
echo "<b>No data found!</b>";
}
It actually depends on what you want to do. As the comments have pointed out, you may want an empty array to be a special case, so you'd like to handle that case differently. Otherwise, no warning will be thrown if you execute foreach on an empty array, you just won't get any results. A typical check you should execute is if $items is an array at all, or cast $items into an array anyway to avoid getting that warning. If you did that and $items would be generally be converted into an array of one value, i.e. the value $items had at that point.
e.g.
$items = 2;
foreach((array)$items as $item) {
print $item; //will print 2 alright
}
or
if(is_array($items)) {
foreach($items as $item) {
print $item;
}
}
else {
// do something here
}

Weird PHP behaviour - What's going on? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Closed 10 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Strange behavior Of foreach
Just came across this bug recently in a PHP app. Not sure what's going on.
Basically, it shows up when using a combination of two foreach (one with &, one without).
Here's a test code that reproduce the problem:
$items = array(
array('id'=>1, 'name'=>'foo', 'value'=>150),
array('id'=>2, 'name'=>'bar', 'value'=>190)
);
foreach($items as &$item)
{
$item['percentage'] = $item['value'] * 0.75;
}
var_dump($items); // All Good
foreach($items as $item)
{
var_dump($item); // Shows 1st item twice
}
The second foreach loop runs the block twice, as expected, but $item remains stuck on the first item.
I understand this is likely caused by the use of the reference & in the first loop but I don't see why it should behave like this..
Any idea? is that a bug?
Getting the same result on 5.3.8, 5.3.10 & 5.4
Firstly, it is not a bug as Rasmus said. See https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=29992
In this, right implementation of modifying array with its loop variable with &.
<?php
$arr = array(1, 2, 3, 4);
foreach ($arr as &$value) {
$value = $value * 2;
}
// $arr is now array(2, 4, 6, 8)
unset($value); // break the reference with the last element
var_dump($arr); // All Good
foreach($arr as $value) {
var_dump($value); // All good
}
?>
This is odd PHP behavior that's been around pretty much forever, and it happens when you mix the use of a variable as reference then not reference like you did.
I deal with it with a naming convention as follows: When I am using foreach with a &$item, I name it like &$refItem. This keeps me from mixing types.
You need to unset the pointer after using foreach with a referenced array.
http://php.net/unset
This may be something that look more understand the problem of foreach
$last_value_of_first_foreach = 1;
$item = 2;
$c = 3;
$item = &$last_value_of_first_foreach ; // Think that this statement is first foreach loop
// Here $item is pointer to $last_value_of_first_foreach
// To Better understanding, let change the name ($reference_to_last_value = $item;)
now, the new loop is
$item = $c;
// Here, what it do is update value where the $item pointer refer to
// (mean $last_value_of_first_foreach )
// so, at here $last_value_of_first_foreach has value of $c
Now, back to your case, from the first foreach, the $item reference to the last element of array. now, when you assign something to $item in second foreach, what it do, is put something inside that one.
In the end of first loop
$item is pointer to $items[1]
The first of second loop
it will push the first element to the location where the $item point to (that mean $items[1], so that why $items[1] is replaced by $items[0].
In case you want to prevent this one, just unset the $item variable before next time usage.
This is a normal, not a weird behavior. Just read about reference here.
When you add & in front of a variable, you store the reference to a variable. So, when you re-use it, it will also change the contents of the referenced variable.
foreach($items as &$item) // You have $item here, prefixed with &.
{
$item['percentage'] = $item['value'] * 0.75;
}
var_dump($items);
foreach($items as $item) // And your re-use it here.
{
var_dump($item);
}
To solve this, add unset($item) in the 1st loop:
foreach($items as &$item)
{
$item['percentage'] = $item['value'] * 0.75;
unset($item); // add this, because you use &$item previously.
}

How do you remove an array element in a foreach loop?

I want to loop through an array with foreach to check if a value exists. If the value does exist, I want to delete the element which contains it.
I have the following code:
foreach($display_related_tags as $tag_name) {
if($tag_name == $found_tag['name']) {
// Delete element
}
}
I don't know how to delete the element once the value is found. How do I delete it?
I have to use foreach for this problem. There are probably alternatives to foreach, and you are welcome to share them.
If you also get the key, you can delete that item like this:
foreach ($display_related_tags as $key => $tag_name) {
if($tag_name == $found_tag['name']) {
unset($display_related_tags[$key]);
}
}
A better solution is to use the array_filter function:
$display_related_tags =
array_filter($display_related_tags, function($e) use($found_tag){
return $e != $found_tag['name'];
});
As the php documentation reads:
As foreach relies on the internal array pointer in PHP 5, changing it within the loop may lead to unexpected behavior.
In PHP 7, foreach does not use the internal array pointer.
foreach($display_related_tags as $key => $tag_name)
{
if($tag_name == $found_tag['name'])
unset($display_related_tags[$key];
}
Instead of doing foreach() loop on the array, it would be faster to use array_search() to find the proper key. On small arrays, I would go with foreach for better readibility, but for bigger arrays, or often executed code, this should be a bit more optimal:
$result=array_search($unwantedValue,$array,true);
if($result !== false) {
unset($array[$result]);
}
The strict comparsion operator !== is needed, because array_search() can return 0 as the index of the $unwantedValue.
Also, the above example will remove just the first value $unwantedValue, if the $unwantedValue can occur more then once in the $array, You should use array_keys(), to find all of them:
$result=array_keys($array,$unwantedValue,true)
foreach($result as $key) {
unset($array[$key]);
}
Check http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-search.php for more information.
if you have scenario in which you have to remove more then one values from the foreach array in this case you have to pass value by reference in for each:
I try to explain this scenario:
foreach ($manSkuQty as $man_sku => &$man_qty) {
foreach ($manufacturerSkus as $key1 => $val1) {
// some processing here and unset first loops entries
// here dont include again for next iterations
if(some condition)
unset($manSkuQty[$key1]);
}
}
}
in second loop you want to unset first loops entries dont come again in the iteration for performance purpose or else then unset from memory as well because in memory they present and will come in iterations.
There are already answers which are giving light on how to unset. Rather than repeating code in all your classes make function like below and use it in code whenever required. In business logic, sometimes you don't want to expose some properties. Please see below one liner call to remove
public static function removeKeysFromAssociativeArray($associativeArray, $keysToUnset)
{
if (empty($associativeArray) || empty($keysToUnset))
return array();
foreach ($associativeArray as $key => $arr) {
if (!is_array($arr)) {
continue;
}
foreach ($keysToUnset as $keyToUnset) {
if (array_key_exists($keyToUnset, $arr)) {
unset($arr[$keyToUnset]);
}
}
$associativeArray[$key] = $arr;
}
return $associativeArray;
}
Call like:
removeKeysFromAssociativeArray($arrValues, $keysToRemove);

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