Arrays store multiple values in a single variable. PHP supports indexed arrays, associative arrays, and multidimensional arrays.
<?php
// Indexed array
$fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"];
echo $fruits[0]; // apple
echo count($fruits); // 3
// Associative array
$person = [
"name" => "Alice",
"age" => 30,
"city" => "New York"
];
echo $person["name"]; // Alice
// Multidimensional array
$students = [
["name" => "Bob", "grade" => "A"],
["name" => "Carol", "grade" => "B"],
["name" => "Dave", "grade" => "C"],
];
echo $students[1]["name"]; // Carol
echo $students[1]["grade"]; // B
?>PHP provides a rich set of functions to add, remove, search, and transform arrays.
<?php
$arr = [1, 2, 3];
array_push($arr, 4, 5); // add to end -> [1,2,3,4,5]
$last = array_pop($arr); // remove end -> $last=5, arr=[1,2,3,4]
array_unshift($arr, 0); // add to start -> [0,1,2,3,4]
$first = array_shift($arr); // remove start -> $first=0, arr=[1,2,3,4]
// Merge arrays
$a = [1, 2];
$b = [3, 4];
$merged = array_merge($a, $b); // [1,2,3,4]
// Slice - extract portion
$slice = array_slice($merged, 1, 2); // [2,3]
// Unique values
$dup = [1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4];
$unique = array_unique($dup); // [1,2,3,4]
// Search
echo in_array(3, $merged); // 1 (true)
echo array_search(3, $merged); // 2 (index)
// Keys and values
print_r(array_keys($person ?? []));
print_r(array_values($person ?? []));
?>PHP has multiple sort functions. sort() reindexes, while asort() preserves keys.
<?php
$nums = [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6];
sort($nums); // ascending, reindex
print_r($nums); // [1,1,2,3,4,5,6,9]
rsort($nums); // descending, reindex
print_r($nums); // [9,6,5,4,3,2,1,1]
// Associative sort (preserves keys)
$scores = ["Alice" => 85, "Bob" => 92, "Carol" => 78];
asort($scores); // sort by value, keep keys
ksort($scores); // sort by key alphabetically
// Custom sort
$people = [
["name" => "Bob", "age" => 30],
["name" => "Alice", "age" => 25],
["name" => "Carol", "age" => 35],
];
usort($people, fn($a, $b) => $a["age"] - $b["age"]);
// Now sorted by age ascending
print_r($people);
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