looping through arrays with foreach statement

Question

I have a list of arrays and need them to output with a printf statement

<?php
$example = array("first" => "Bob", "last" => "Smith", "address" => "123 Spruce st" );
$example = array("first" => "Sara", "last" => "Blask", "address" => "5678 Maple ct" );

foreach ($example as $key => $val) {
  printf("<p>hello my name is %s %s and i live at %s</p>",$example['first'],$example['last'], $example['address']);
}

?>

The above just outputs the last array, i need it to loop through all of the arrays and produce a <p> with the supplied key => value combinations. this is only a simplified example as the real world code will be more complex in the outputted html

I tried

foreach ($example as $arr){
printf("<p>hello my name is %s %s and i live at %s</p>",$arr['first'],$arr['last'], $arr['address']);
}

but it only outputs a single character for each key => value

You're declaring $example twice - the second one will over-write the first one. That definitely won't help. — andrewsi
– andrewsi, Commented Sep 11, 2012 at 18:45

nickb · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-11 18:46:44Z

2

Try something like this:

// Declare $example as an array, and add arrays to it
$example = array();
$example[] = array("first" => "Bob", "last" => "Smith", "address" => "123 Spruce st" );
$example[] = array("first" => "Sara", "last" => "Blask", "address" => "5678 Maple ct" );

// Loop over each sub-array
foreach( $example as $val) {
    // Access elements via $val
    printf("<p>hello my name is %s %s and i live at %s</p>",$val['first'],$val['last'], $val['address']);
}

You can see from this demo that it prints:

hello my name is Bob Smith and i live at 123 Spruce st
hello my name is Sara Blask and i live at 5678 Maple ct

answered Sep 11, 2012 at 18:46

nickb

59.7k13 gold badges115 silver badges149 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Danferth Over a year ago

Awesome that's what i was missing declaring $example as an array! thank you. and +1 for the demo!

nickb Over a year ago

You're welcome! Just to clarify, it is not required to declare it as an array, as doing $example[] will implicitly create $example as an array. However, it is my preference and a general best-practice to define variables before you use them.

Bugs · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-11 18:46:54Z

1

You need to declare example as an array as well to get a 2-dimensional array and then append to it.

$example = array();
$example[] = array("first" => "Bob", "last" => "Smith", "address" => "123 Spruce st" ); # appends to array $example
$example[] = array("first" => "Sara", "last" => "Blask", "address" => "5678 Maple ct" );

answered Sep 11, 2012 at 18:46

Bugs

1,4521 gold badge15 silver badges22 bronze badges

Comments

Explosion Pills · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-11 18:47:30Z

0

You're overwriting $example on both lines. You need a multi-dimensional "array of arrays:"

$examples = array();
$examples[] = array("first" ...
$examples[] = array("first" ...

foreach ($examples as $example) {
   foreach ($example as $key => $value) { ...

Of course, you can also do the printf immediately instead of assigning the arrays.

answered Sep 11, 2012 at 18:47

Explosion Pills

192k56 gold badges341 silver badges417 bronze badges

Comments

sbeliv01 · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-11 18:48:38Z

0

You'll have to make an array of your arrays and loop through the main array:

<?php

$examples[] = array("first" => "Bob", "last" => "Smith", "address" => "123 Spruce st" );
$examples[] = array("first" => "Sara", "last" => "Blask", "address" => "5678 Maple ct" );

foreach ($examples as $example) {
  printf("<p>hello my name is %s %s and i live at %s</p>",$example['first'],$example['last'], $example['address']);
}

?>

answered Sep 11, 2012 at 18:48

sbeliv01

11.8k2 gold badges26 silver badges25 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

looping through arrays with foreach statement

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related