CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phparraysassociative-arrayisset
bcoughlan
bcoughlan

Reputation: 26627

PHP associative arrays - how to treat integer as string

I have a simple associative array.

$a = array("a"=>"b", "c"=>"d");

I want to check if the key "1" exists in the array, e.g.

isset($a["1"]);

This string is being treated as an integer, so that

echo $a["1"]; //prints "d"

How do I get it to treat it as a string?

I don't want to use array_key_exists or in_array because my benchmarking shows isset will be a lot faster.

Upvotes: 7

Views: 4206

Answers (3)

goat
goat

Reputation: 31823

if echo $a['1'] prints d, then your array has more elements than you realize.

see var_dump($a) and print_r($a) functions to help you debug your code.

Upvotes: 0

Michael Burr
Michael Burr

Reputation: 340316

It doesn't appear that you can do what you want to do. from http://us.php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php:

A key may be either an integer or a string. If a key is the standard representation of an integer, it will be interpreted as such (i.e. "8" will be interpreted as 8, while "08" will be interpreted as "08").

You'll probably have to use Fosco's suggestion of prefixing all your keys with something. If you use the same prefix on every key, then it doesn't matter if you're parsing a text that might have words and numbers - put the same prefix on everything regardless.

Upvotes: 6

BarsMonster
BarsMonster

Reputation: 6585

isset($a["1"]) | isset($a[1]) ?

Or just isset($a[1])

Or even isset($a[intval(1)]) to be 1000% sure.

Upvotes: 0

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