Question

I have a normal, boring old array which has a lot of data in it. Let’s say the array is structured like this:

$myArray = array( 'a','b','c','START','d','e','f','END' );

Now, I need to select only the values that come after START, but before END. So, in this example, I need to select the values ‘d’, ‘e’, and ‘f’.

Here’s the tricky part; START will always exist, however END may or may not (this is how the data is returned from the server). If START and END both exist, then I just need the values inbetween the 2. if only START exists, then just select all the values from START until the end of the array. ‘START’ does not have a fixed index; its location changes depending on the data supplied from the server.

So what would be quick, relatively painless way to rip out these values in between 2 specified values, and then save them to a new array?

EDIT: The only implementation I was able to get functioning was the one provided by @nickb, further down in the comments. I have added it to this OP for ease of use for others.

array_shift( $array[0]); // Get rid of the 'count' element
$start = array_search( 'registered:current', $array[0], true);
$end = array_search( 'END', $array[0], true); // Change 'END' to whatever it is
$return = array_slice( $array[0], $start + 1, ($end ? ($end - $start - 1) : null));

Answer 1

How about this?

$end = array_search( 'END', $array, true);
$return = array_slice( $array,
    array_search( 'START', $array, true) + 1,
        ($end ? ($end - count( $array)) : null)
);

If 'END' isn’t found, array_search() will return false, which causes the the 3rd parameter to array_slice() to be set to null, returning the remaining elements in the array, starting at 'START'. But if 'END' is found, you’ll get an array containing the elements between 'START' and 'END', as seen in this demo.

Edit: Here is a simpler implementation that uses the indexes directly, which is based on Matt’s edit with some tweaks to make it not include the delimiter:

$start = array_search( 'START', $array, true) + 1; // +1 to get rid of 'START'
$end = array_search( 'END', $array, true);
$return = array_slice( $array, $start, ($end ? ($end - $start - 1) : null)); // Omit 3rd param if 'END' is not found

Edit: Final implementation:

array_shift( $array[0]); // Get rid of the 'count' element
$start = array_search( 'registered:current', $array[0], true);
$end = array_search( 'END', $array[0], true); // Change 'END' to whatever it is
$return = array_slice( $array[0], $start + 1, ($end ? ($end - $start - 1) : null));