Question

I am learning how to use PHP. I read a file content into an array and assign variable name for each index in the array.

For example:

$words = file("example.txt"); #each line of the file will have the format a, b, c , d

foreach ($words in $word) {  
$content = explode(",", $word); #split a, b, c, d  
list($a, $b, $c, $d) = $content;  
do something  
}  

/* And now I want to read file, split the sentence and loop over the array again, but
 the last statement will do something else different:   */
foreach ($words in $word) {  
$content = explode(",", $word); #split a, b, c, d  
list($a, $b, $c, $d) = $content;  
do something else different  
} 

What can I do to reduce this redundancy? As you can see, I cannot make a function because the last statement do something different to the array. But the process of reading file, splitting sentences, and assigning vars are the same

Thank you

Answer 1

I’m assuming you meant to type foreach($words as $word), with “as” instead of “in”, but that’s just a minor thing compared to the question.

You can certainly reduce the redundancy by storing the results of the explode calls:

$lines = Array();
foreach($words as $word) {
    list($a,$b,$c,$d) = $lines[] = explode(",",$word);
    // do something here
}

foreach($lines as $line) {
    list($a,$b,$c,$d) = $line;
    // do something else
}

This way you don’t have to explode the line again.