Question

In a for loop it is simple…

for ( $idx = 0 ; $idx < count ( $array ) ; $idx ++ )
{
    if ( $idx == 0 )
    {
        // This is the first element of the array.
    }
}

How the hell is this done in a foreach loop?

is there a function like is_first() or something?

I’m looking for something like:

foreach ( $array as $key => $value )
{
    if ( /* is the first element */ )
    {
        // do logic on first element
    }
    else
    {
        // all other logic
    }
}

I was thinking I could set a bool like $is_first = true; and then as soon as the loops been iterated once, set the bool to false.

But php has a lot of pre-built functions and id rather use that… or another way…

The whole bool way seem almost like… cheeting :s

Cheers,

Alex

Answer 1

You can do this using “current()”

$myArray = array('a', 'b', 'c');
if (current($myArray) == $myArray[0]) {
    // We are at the first element
}

Docs: http://php.net/manual/en/function.current.php

Ways of retrieving the first element:

$myArray[0]

$slice = array_slice($myArray, 0, 1); 
$elm = array_pop($slice);