Question

I have the following code:

$id = $_GET['id'];

echo '<br>' . 'id: ' . $id . '<br><br>';

echo '<pre>';
            print_r($itemQtys);
echo '</pre>';

echo '<br>' . 'itemqtys[id]: ' . $itemQtys[$id] . '<br>';

echo '<br>' . 'id: ' . $id . '<br>';

The output is:

id: 5

Array
(
[5] => 12
)

itemqtys[id]:

id: 5

As you can see, when I try to access the value in the array using the $id variable as the key, no value is returned. However, when I do this:

echo '<br>' . 'itemqtys[5]: ' . $itemQtys[5] . '<br>';

The result is:

itemqtys[5]: 12

Why can’t I use a variable to specify the index in the array?

Answer 1

when debugging use var_dump() to inspect values. Notice var dump tells you the string length. right click > view html source when debugging too.

My guess is that $id is a string and has trailing whitespace characters.