Question

Given this multidimensional array, I’m trying to retrieve the value of one of the child keys:

$movieCast = Array(
    '1280741692' => Array(
        ...
        , 'userid' => 62
        , 'country_id' => '00002'
        ...
    )
    , '1280744592' => Array(
        ...
        , 'userid' => 62
        , 'country_id' => '00002'
        ...
    )
)

How can I retrieve the value of country_id?

The top-level array key could be anything and the value of country_id will always be the same for a specific user. In this example, user #62’s country_id will always be 00002.

Answer 1

You have to iterate through the outer array:

foreach ($outer as $inner) {
    //do something with $inner["country_id"]
}

Another option is to build an array with the contry_ids (example uses PHP >=5.3 functionality, but that can be worked around easily in earlier versions):

array_map(function ($inner) { return $inner["country_id"]; }, $outer);

EDIT If the ids are all the same, even easier. Do:

$inner = reset($outer); //gives first element (and resets array pointer)
$id = $inner["country_id"];