Originally published on zero2php.dev — part of the Zero to PHP course. View this lesson on the original site.

Everyday tasks

Common tasks you will do constantly:

  • Add: $items[] = 'new'; or $items['key'] = 'value';
  • Remove: unset($items[1]); (be careful with re-indexing for lists)
  • Count: count($items)
  • Sort: sort, ksort, asort (each behaves differently—read the docs)

Example

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

$scores = ['ada' => 95, 'linus' => 88];
arsort($scores);
print_r($scores);

Debugging

When something looks “weird”, print_r or var_dump the array before guessing.

Exercise

Set $nums = [3, 1, 2], sort it ascending, then echo the three digits concatenated (no spaces)—output 123.

From Zero to PHP — Control flow, functions, arrays, and the web