Question

Is there a way to specify getting all but the first element in an array? I generally use foreach() to loop through my arrays.

say array(1,2,3,4,5), i would only want 2, 3, 4 ,5 to show and for it to skip 1.

Answer 1

There are multiple ways of approaching this problem.

The first solution is to use a flag boolean to indicate the first element and proceed in your foreach

$firstElement = true;

foreach($array as $key => $val) {
  if($firstElement) {
    $firstElement = false;
  } else {
    echo "$key => $val\n";
  }
}

If your elements are naturally numerically indexed, you do not need the boolean flag, you can simply check if the key is 0.

foreach($array as $key => $val) {
  if($key === 0) continue;      

  echo "$key => $val\n";
}

---

The second way is to cheat your way into a naturally numerically indexed array if it isn’t already. I will use array_keys() to get a naturally numerically indexed array of keys and loop it.

$keys = array_keys($array);

foreach($keys as $index => $key) {
  if($index === 0) continue;   

  $val = $array[$key];
  echo "$key => $val\n";
}

---

The third way is to use the array internal pointer to skip the first element and then continue in a loop by using reset(), next(), list(), and each(). Performance and resource-wise, this is the best option. Maintainability suffers greatly though.

reset($array); // Reset pointer to 0
next($array);  // Advance pointer to 1

while (list($key, $val) = each($array)) {
  echo "$key => $val\n";
}  

---

If you don’t mind losing the first element of the array, you can array_shift() it.

array_shift($array);

foreach($array as $key => $val) {
  echo "$key => $val\n";
}

---

You can also array_slice() the array. I’m also using count() in order to be able to set the preserve_keys parameter to true.

$sliced = array_slice($array, 1, count($array)-1, true);

foreach($sliced as $key => $val) {
  echo "$key => $val\n";
}