Question

i have the following array:

$list = array('item1','item2','item3','item4','item5','item6');

i need to take this array and break it into smaller arrays within 1 array for a program. Each small array needs to have ‘999999’ at index 0, followed by the next 2 items in the $list array, then followed by the same 2 items in the $list array, but with .pdf at the end, to create a filename. So the final result would be like this:

$newList = array( array(999999, "item1" , "item2", "item1.pdf", "item2.pdf"),
               array(999999, "item3" , "item4", "item3.pdf", "item4.pdf"),
               array(999999, "item5" , "item6", "item5.pdf", "item6.pdf")
             ); 

the original list array may contain up to 100 values at sometimes. What is the best way to achieve this?

Answer 1

You can use array_splice to remove 2 elements at each iteration and build your results array. Something like that:

$list = array('item1','item2','item3','item4','item5','item6');

$result = array();
while (!empty($list)) {
    $array = array_splice($list, 0, 2);

    if (count($array) == 2) {
        $result[] = array(999999, $array[0], $array[1], $array[0] . ".pdf", $array[1] . ".pdf");
    } else {
        $result[] = array(999999, $array[0], '', $array[0] . ".pdf", '');
    }
}

var_dump($result);