how to retrive the highest key number in a big array

[marcnyc]

I was wondering if somebody can help me figure out how to find out what the highest number of a key in an array is....
In other words I have an array like this:
$a[1] = 1;
$a[53] = 3;
$a[23] = 5;

I want to find the number 53.
The array is pretty big so I would like to avoid going through cycles and I was hoping there would be an easy command like count() that spits out instead of the count of the keys the number of the highest key.

Thanks

[NogDog]

My first thought:

$keys = array_keys($a);
sort($keys)
$highestKey = array_pop($keys);

[marcnyc]

seems to do the trick! thanks for (array_)popping your head into this thread and help me out!

[AndyMoore]

thanks from me too!

i have a script that's nearly a week old now harvesting data each hour, i was wondering about this and my regular nightly check on phpbuilder proved a winner again!

now i can set to and do some funky stuff with the dom and scriptaculous 🙂

[bradgrafelman]

Don't forget to mark this thread resolved.