Question

I have a function that accepts an array parameter as

array('employee_name' => 'employee_location' )

eg:
array('John' => 'U.S', 'Dave' => 'Australia', 'Unitech' => 'U.S' )

I wish to keep ‘U.S’ as the default location and a optional value, so

So If I pass

array('John', 'Dave' => 'Australia', 'Unitech')

Is there a in-build function in PHP that automatically converts it to

array('John' => 'U.S', 'Dave' => 'Australia', 'Unitech' => 'U.S' )

Answer 1

There is no built-in function for that.

You should loop through your array and check if the key is numeric. If it is, use the value as the key and add your default as the value.

Simple example (using a new array for clarity):

$result = array();
foreach ($arr as $key => $value)
{
  if (is_int($key))    // changed is_numeric to is_int as that is more correct
  {
    $result[$value] = $default_value;
  }
  else
  {
    $result[$key] = $value;
  }
}

Obviously this would break on duplicate names.