Question

I have this normal array name $arr..
and trying to push something on the array using array_push() function.. like array_push( $arr['alerts_data'], 999 );
It produces this output:

Array
(
    [alerts_data] => Array
        (
            [0] => 169
            [1] => 175
            [2] => 111
            [3] => 48
            [4] => 999
        )

)

When i use json_encode I got:

{"alerts_data":[169,175,111,48,111,999]}

BUT, when I try to unset() something from $arr like:

unset( $arr['alerts_data'][4] );// will remove removes the 999

and then use the json_encode again, I got this json object

{"alerts_data":{"0":169,"1":175,"2":111,"3":48}}

What’s wrong in here? can you tell? I want to achieve the first encoded json above by using the unset() function.

Answer 1

Yes, it’s because the array keys aren’t consecutive anymore, so it’s treated as an associative array, and PHP associative arrays become JavaScript objects, because JavaScript does not have associative arrays.

Use array_splice() to cleanly remove elements from the array.