How do I echo each value of a foreach loop? - php

Question

Not sure if the question title actually makes sense.
Anyway, what I'd like to do is be able to echo an individual value from a foreach loop.
Here's my code:
$headlines = array('primary_headline' => $_POST['primary_headline'], 'secondary_headline' => $_POST['secondary_headline'], 'primary_subline' => $_POST['primary_subline'], 'secondary_subtext' => $_POST['secondary_subtext']);
$city_name = "Dallas";
$ref_name = "Facebook";
$searches = array('$city_name', '$ref_name');
$replacements = array($city_name, $ref_name);
if(isset($headlines)) {
foreach($headlines as $headline) {
$headline = str_replace($searches, $replacements, $headline);
echo($headline['primary_headline']); // I thought this would do the trick
}
}
I thought that this would've echoed my city is Dallas when my city is $city_name was posted, unfortunately, this isn't the case and it merely echoes msps, which is the first letter of each input value:
<input name="primary_headline" type="text" value="my city is $city_name" />
<input name="secondary_headline" type="text" value="secondary headline" />
<input name="primary_subline" type="text" value="primary subline" />
<input name="secondary_subtext" type="text" value="secondary subline" />
<input type="submit" value="submit" />
If anyone could point me in the right direction, it would be very much appreciated!! :)

Answer 1

$searches = array('$city_name', '$ref_name');
The single quotes are making $searches literally contain the word $city_name, not the VALUE of $city_name. You don't need quotes while assigning variables:
$searches = array($city_name, $ref_name);
unless, of course, you're doing some kind of templating system and trying to do variable interpolation without eval().

Answer 2

Change
echo($headline['primary_headline']); // I thought this would do the trick
To
echo($headline) . PHP_EOL; // I thought this would do the trick
When you are using foreach you do not need to specify an index to the element, because foreach will handle iterating for you, so when you dereference something inside the loop, you are asking for a character from the string. Here you get the first character because 'primary_headline' is being interpreted as a 0.

Answer 3

$headlines = array('primary_headline' => $_POST['primary_headline'], 'secondary_headline' => $_POST['secondary_headline'], 'primary_subline' => $_POST['primary_subline'], 'secondary_subtext' => $_POST['secondary_subtext']);
This creates an array with key=>value pairs, not a multidimensional array. Looping through this array in a foreach loop will return only the values, i.e. $_POST['primary_headline'] for the first iteration, $_POST['secondary_headline'] for the second iteration, etc. This is why you're unable to access $headline['primary_headline'].
If you want to access "my city is Dallas" per your example, simply echo $headlines['primary_headline'].
If you want to echo each value:
foreach($headlines as $headline) {
echo $headline . PHP_EOL;
}

Answer 4

For good measure figured I should close this question with an answer (I've already placed it in the comments section as I couldn't add an answer).
The ampersand (&) must be used in order to assign a reference to the original array $headlines instead of copying it's valuables, thus updating it with any values created within the foreach() loop.
So, my code is now;
$headlines = array('primary_headline' => $_POST['primary_headline'], 'secondary_headline' => $_POST['secondary_headline'], 'primary_subline' => $_POST['primary_subline'], 'secondary_subtext' => $_POST['secondary_subtext']);
$city_name = "Dallas";
$ref_name = "Facebook";
$searches = array('$city_name', '$ref_name');
$replacements = array($city_name, $ref_name);
if(isset($headlines)) {
foreach($headlines as &$headline) {
$headline = str_replace($searches, $replacements, $headline);
}
echo ($headlines['primary_headline']) // This now has the value of $_POST['primary_headline'] along with the str_replace() function assigned to $headline
}