[RESOLVED] what ?? i am not allowed to refer to keyed arrays via index anymore ??

dewcansam

In the past I have always been able to refer to keyed arrays via key names OR index. Now for some reason it seems like this has changed. Am i missing something or what ??

<?php
$nl = "<br/>\r\n";
if (empty($_GET["q"])) {
  $qstr = explode("-","0-0-22");
}else{
  $qstr = explode("-",$_GET["q"]);
}

$fontfamily = array(
  "Andale Mono" => "andalemo.ttf",
  "Anonymous" => "Anonymous Pro B.ttf",
  "Arial Black" => "Arial_Black.ttf",
  "Arial" => "arial.ttf",
  "BPmono Bold" => "BPmonoBold.ttf",
  "Impact" => "impact.ttf",
  "Verdana" => "verdana.ttf",
);
$fontfamily_2 = array(
  "verdana.ttf",
  "arial.ttf",
  "andalemo.ttf",
  "BPmonoBold.ttf",
  "Anonymous Pro B.ttf",
);
$fontid = $qstr[1];
if (($fontid < 0) || ($fontid > count($fontfamily))){
  $fontid = 0;
}
$font = "../../fonts/" . $fontfamily[$fontid];
echo "qstr = $qstr[1] $nl";
echo "fontid = $fontid $nl";
echo "fontfamily = " . $fontfamily[0] . " $nl";
echo "fontfamily_2 = " . $fontfamily_2[0] . " $nl";
echo "fontfamily = " . $fontfamily["Andale Mono"] . " $nl";
echo "<pre>";
print_r($fontfamily);
print_r($fontfamily_2);
echo "</pre>";
$team1 = array("wins" => 5, "ties" => 3, "loses" => 2);
echo "team1_0 = " . $team1[0] . "$nl"; // 5
echo "team1_wins = " . $team1["wins"] . "$nl"; // 5
echo "team1_1 = " . $team1[1] . "$nl"; // 3
echo "team1_loses = " . $team1["loses"] . "$nl"; // 2

I even searched the forums and turned up this post which indicates that it should work.
http://phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?t=10375763&highlight=array+index
I then added it to my test script and it is not working for me ??
http://dewcansam.dyndns.org/prj/imgDescription/test.php?q=0-0-0

any ideas as to what is going on ?? I have even tried this on both win and linux platforms and got the same thing.

anakadote

Not sure if this is the issue, but try removing the extraneous comma (,) from the end of your arrays.

dewcansam

anakadote;10972660 wrote:
Not sure if this is the issue, but try removing the extraneous comma (,) from the end of your arrays.

Sorry but that is not it. Tested and did not work.
However you will also note that $team1 did not have the ending comma. And according to drupal coding standards the comma is recommend.

http://drupal.org/coding-standards#array

Note the comma at the end of the last array element; This is not a typo! It helps prevent parsing errors if another element is placed at the end of the list later.

dewcansam

just added a for loop to run through the array and it loops through it ok but outputs empty strings
http://dewcansam.dyndns.org/prj/imgDescription/test.php?q=0-0-0
once again this was something i used to do all the time with no problems.
Well,,,,,,,,, at least i thought i used to do it . I can not seem to find any code relating to the issue.

Res

I'm confused as to what your issue is. Everything works as expected both on my server in looking at the test link you posted.

fontfamily1 is an associative array, you have assigned string indexes to it. You then try and access it by the counter, or index 0,1,2,etc. Those indexes don't exist so I would expect empty results.

Perhaps you are thinking of getting results from a database using mysql_fetch_assoc, which returns an array with both the string index and the numeric index, or I'm misunderstanding your issue.

bradgrafelman

I too am confused on what your issue is. Can you post a simple, concise code snippet that exhibits the issue you're referring to? Also:

dewcansam wrote:
In the past I have always been able to refer to keyed arrays via key names OR index.

No, you haven't. Arrays are nothing more than a mapping between a distinct key and an associated value. That's it. To access a value, you must supply its key. If you do not define a value for a given key, then you can't retrieve an element from an array using that key.

So, if you're using strings for key names, then you can't expect some arbitrary integer to retrieve elements from the array just as the strings do.

dewcansam

Res;10972665 wrote:
Perhaps you are thinking of getting results from a database using mysql_fetch_assoc, which returns an array with both the string index and the numeric index, or I'm misunderstanding your issue.

Maybe i guess i am, because i know that fetch the result and can refer to index 0 as both 0 and "id" (just an example) and i could have sworn that i have done it to standard assoc arrays as well. But, like i said so far i have not found any code to back me up.

However, like i pointed out this post http://phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?t=10375763&highlight=array+index indicates that you can reference an assoc array via index or key.

The only other thing that i can think of is that i am getting confused somewhere somehow. Which for me right now isn't that hard.

So anyways, is there anyway that you can reference an assoc array by index ?
Here is what i am after. I am using the $fontfamily array to drive both the html select element and the php code to select the correct font file. But it is being delivered to the script in the querysting as an int. I guess if i have to i will urlencode it but, it was just so much simpler to send it as an int.

I hope that clears things up abit. I guess i am just mistaken, or thinking about the db fetch assoc, like you said.

dagon

remove, res, already pointed this out.

dewcansam

Well not being the one to give up on things i found a way to retrieve the val from an assoc array using just an int. Solving my issue.

<?php
$qstr = explode("-","0-3-22");
$fontfamily = array(
  "Andale Mono" => "andalemo.ttf",
  "Anonymous" => "Anonymous Pro B.ttf",
  "Arial Black" => "Arial_Black.ttf",
  "Arial" => "arial.ttf",
  "BPmono Bold" => "BPmonoBold.ttf",
  "Impact" => "impact.ttf",
  "Verdana" => "verdana.ttf",
);
$x = 0;
foreach ($fontfamily as $key => $val){
  if($qstr[1] == $x){
    $fontfile = $val;
    break;
  }
  $x++;
}
echo "fontfile = $fontfile";

dagon

longer,slower, prone to errors, harder to debug - this solves what exactly??

dewcansam

dagon;10972681 wrote:
longer,slower, prone to errors, harder to debug - this solves what exactly??

OK then, how would you go about retrieving the value of an associated array using ONLY an int ??
And just how is it "longer, slower...." than what ?
And it did solve it, because it is working perfectly.

http://dewcansam.dyndns.org/prj/imgDescription/imgDescription_playground.php

dagon

dewcansam;10972684 wrote:
OK then, how would you go about retrieving the value of an associated array using ONLY an int ??

I wouldn't, you don't need to, this is an arbitrary restriction you have placed on yourself.

dewcansam;10972684 wrote:
And just how is it "longer, slower...." than what ?

code that does 'nothing' still takes time to run

bradgrafelman

dewcansam wrote:
Maybe i guess i am, because i know that fetch the result and can refer to index 0 as both 0 and "id" (just an example) and i could have sworn that i have done it to standard assoc arrays as well.

Well.. I can "swear" that you haven't. :p The only reason that the integer as well as the string index works when using the 'fetch_row' DB command is because those functions explicitly duplicate the data in the array under both key names.

dewcansam wrote:
However, like i pointed out this post http://phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?t=10375763&highlight=array+index indicates that you can reference an assoc array via index or key

No.. that post indicates that some user thought you could access it that way. Did you actually try the code? I tried this:

$team1 = array("wins" => 5, "ties" => 3, "loses" => 2); 

echo $team1[1]; // 3 
echo $team1[0]; // 5 
echo $team1["loses"]; // 2 
echo $team1["wins"]; // 5

and was greeted with the following (expected) error messages:

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in D:\php\test.php on line 4

Notice: Undefined offset: 0 in D:\php\test.php on line 5

dewcansam wrote:
So anyways, is there anyway that you can reference an assoc array by index ?

There is, in a roundabout way, but why would you want to? If the data in the array was mapped using a key such as "id", then why would you want to arbitrarily pick something out of the nth position in the array?

The only real way I can think of to access an associative array by index number would be to use [man]array_keys/man to get the values of the keys in the array in a numerically indexed array, and then use that array to get the nth array key and address the original array that way, e.g.

echo $array[$keys[1]];

But again, I don't understand how this could be practically useful.

DaveRandom

Maybe the source of the confusion here is that mysql_fetch_array() by default returns the same data twice, in both indexed and associative keys - that confused the hell out of me at first.

Just a thought...

Res

You're after something called enumeration I think, which is not built in to PHP. There was a thread I was involved in awhile back discussing this (I was protatoe then), I think NogDogs example is best.

http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?t=10324394&highlight=enumeration