[Resolved] Array Trouble

[webmasternovis]

Hi all,

I don't seem to be able to output arrays very well.

<?php

$html = implode('', file('http://www.example.com'));
preg_match_all("/href=\"(.*?)\"/", $html, $arr);

foreach ($arr as $value) {
   echo "Value: $value<br />\n";
}
?> 

Here I thought that all the links found in the site would be echoed. However, instead, "Array" is just echoed where each link should be.

Does anyone know whats wrong?

Thanks,
Mike 🙂

[devinemke]

first of all, if you have PHP 4.3.0 or higher then your first line of code could be shortened into this:

$html = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com');

secondly, if you read the manual page for [man]preg_match_all[/man] you'll see this:

PREG_PATTERN_ORDER
Orders results so that $matches[0] is an array of full pattern matches, $matches[1] is an array of strings matched by the first parenthesized subpattern, and so on.

the $arr array in a 2-dimension array. do print_r($arr) to get the idea.

[webmasternovis]

Thanks for your suggestions, but I still get the same problem. I changed my code to:

$url = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com');
preg_match_all("/href=\"(.*?)\"/", $url, $arr, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

foreach ($arr as $value) {
   echo "Value: $value<br />\n";
}

Anyone know what is wrong?

Thanks,
Mike 🙂

[devinemke]

Originally posted by webmasternovis
Anyone know what is wrong?

what is wrong is i think you do not understand multi-dimanesional arrays. as i said before, use [man]print_r[/man] to get a visual understanding:

$url = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com'); 
preg_match_all("/href=\"(.*?)\"/", $url, $arr, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER); 
print_r($arr);

[webmasternovis]

Thanks for the link, I now kinda understand them. I see that they are nested inside each other, kind of.

I've searched around but can't seem to find how you echo them. I had a go with list and each but couldn't find a working method. Could someone please help?

Thanks,
Mike

[devinemke]

Originally posted by webmasternovis
I now kinda understand them. I see that they are nested inside each other, kind of...

...and since they are nested you must also nest the means of displaying them. here is an example.

$multi_array = array(
	'New York' => array('New York City', 'Albany', 'Buffulo'),
	'California' => array('Los Angeles', 'San Francisco', 'San Diego'),
	'Texas' => array('Dallas', 'Austin', 'Houston')
);

foreach ($multi_array as $state => $cities)
{
	echo '<b>' . $state . ':</b><br>';
	foreach ($cities as $city)
	{
		echo $city . '<br>';
	}
	echo '<br>';
}

[webmasternovis]

Aha, that now works, thanks mate 🙂