Question

I seem to be having mental issues when it comes to arrays in php. I am not sure why, How ever my array looks like this:

  $elementOptions = array(
       array(
          'type' => 'Text',
          'name' => 'test' ,
          'isRequired' => true,
          'attributes' => array(
          'placeholder' => 'content'  
      ),

      'subFormName' => 'content'
  );

I have a for each loop as such:

foreach ($options as $key => $value) {
    if (is_array($value)) {
        //do something else
    } else {
        //do something                 
    }        
}

The issue is, if I do a var dump inside the if(isarray()){} I get the following back:

array(1) {
  ["placeholder"]=>
  string(7) "content"
}

array(4) {
  ["type"]=>
  string(4) "Text"
  ["name"]=>
  string(4) "test"
  ["isRequired"]=>
  bool(true)
  ["attributes"]=>
  array(1) {
    ["placeholder"]=>
    string(7) "content"
  }
}

now the issue is – I do not want the following in that var dump:

array(1) {
  ["placeholder"]=>
  string(7) "content"
}

I am not sure, based on the “data structure” above, how this ‘placeholder’ => ‘content’ is considered an array…..in either case I do not want it as part of the arrays that are var dumped…. it should just be the second array in that var dump coming back.

And that’s where you guys come in, why is the place holder coming back as an array when it shouldn’t (TMK – to my knowledge).

Answer 1

“placeholder”=>”content” isn’t considered an array or coming back as an array, it’s a pair in an array that you’ve called “attributes”

array(4) {
  ["type"]=>
  string(4) "Text"
  ["name"]=>
  string(4) "test"
  ["isRequired"]=>
  bool(true)

  ["attributes"]=> // this is your array
  array(1) {       // contents of this array are...
    ["placeholder"]=>   // this is a key
    string(7) "content" // this is a variable
  }                // array ends
}