check is Array empty or not (php) - php

Question

I am using Cakephp and try to customize the paginator result with some checkboxes .I was pass parameters in URL like this
"http://localhost/myproject2/browses/index/page:2/b.sonic:1/b.hayate:7/b.nouvo:2/b.others:-1/b.all:-2"
and cakephp translate URL to be the array like this
Array
(
[page] => 2
[b.sonic] => 1
[b.hayate] => 7
[b.nouvo] => 2
[b.others] => -1
[b.all] => -2
)
other time when I pass params without checking any checkbox.
"http://localhost/myproject2/browses/index/page:2"
and cakephp translate URL to be the array like this
Array
(
[page] => 2
)
how to simple check if [b.????] is available or not? I can't use !empty() function because array[page] is getting on the way.

Answer 1

If you want to check if a specific item is present, you can use either :
isset()
or array_key_exists()
But if you want to check if there is at least one item which has a key that starts with b. you will not have much choice : you'll have to loop over the array, testing each key.
A possible solution could look like this :
$array = array(
'page' => 'plop',
'b.test' => 150,
'b.glop' => 'huhu',
);
$found_item_b = false;
foreach (array_keys($array) as $key) {
if (strpos($key, 'b.') === 0) {
$found_item_b = true;
break;
}
}
if ($found_item_b) {
echo "there is at least one b.";
}
Another (possibly more fun, but not necessarily more efficient ^^ ) way would be to get the array of items which have a key that starts with b. and use count() on that array :
$array_b = array_filter(array_keys($array), function ($key) {
if (strpos($key, 'b.') === 0) {
return true;
}
return false;
});
echo count($array_b);

Answer 2

If page is always going to be there, you could simply do a count.
if (count($params) == 1) {
echo "There's stuff other than page!";
}
You could be more specific and check page is there and the count is one.

Answer 3

I think this is what you are looking for, the isset function so you would use it like...
if(isset(Array[b.sonic]))
{
//Code here
}