Question

I have some troubles finding the right key in an array:

when I have an array: $haystack

$haystack = array(0 => 'apple', 
                  1 => 'apple', 
                  2 => 'pear', 
                  3 => 'apple', 
                  4 => 'banana');

and is use the function array_search

$key = array_search('apple', $haystack);

the function wil set the $key value to ‘0’ ( $key = 0 )

I need to find the key of the fourth item in the array (3) which is also apple…
Does anyone know a function that searches the array from a given index and returns a value?

for example something like:

array_search_start($needle, $haystack, $startPosition);

Answer 1

Use array_keys with the second parameter to specify value to search keys for.

$keys = array_keys($haystack, 'apple');

So $keys will contain array of found keys corresponding to search value (apple):

Array
(
    [0] => 0
    [1] => 1
    [2] => 3
)

Now you can get the last one, or the first, etc. If you need the last:

$key = end($keys);