Question

In the code below, is there a way to get the name of the array from within that same array so it doesn’t have to be typed multiple times?

$awesome_array = array(
    'fruit'=>'apple',
    'name'=>'awesome_array', // Name of array here
    'you_are_an'=>'awesome_array' // Name goes here too
);

That is all.

Answer 1

Its not possible directly. But you can achieve this behavior by defining the name prior to defining the array.

Here is 3 ways to do it. There can be more. But I cant recall any other way right now.

Array name is in a string

$array_name = 'awesome_array';
$$array_name = array(
    'fruit'=>'apple',
    'name'=>$array_name, // Name of array here
    'you_are_an'=>$array_name // Name goes here too
);

Most common way

Pekka reminded me in the comments.

$awesome_array = array('fruit'=>'apple');
$awesome_array['name'] = 'awesome_array';
$awesome_array['you_are_an'] = 'awesome_array';

Dynamically collect the name

$awesome_array = array('fruit'=>'apple');
// dynamically extracting the name of last defined variable
list($name) = array_slice(array_keys(get_defined_vars()), -1 , 1);
$awesome_array['name'] = $name;
$awesome_array['you_are_an'] = $name;