Question

$tally['zero']['status']='hello';
echo $tally['zero']['status'];
//prints hello, this is expected

In this example, why is only the first letter being printed?

$tally = array( "zero" => '0');     
$tally['zero']['status']='hello';
echo $tally['zero']['status'];   
// prints h, I was expecting hello

In this example, why is an error being thrown?

$tally['zero'] = 0;
$tally['zero']['status']='hello';
echo $tally['zero']['status'];
//prints Warning: Cannot use a scalar value as an array

Answer 1

In this example, why is only the first letter being printed?

$tally = array( "zero" => '0');
$tally['zero']['status'] = 'hello';
echo $tally['zero']['status']; // h

In PHP, strings can be indexed like arrays, and can also be modified in place. So 'status' becomes 0 when indexing the string, and the first character of hello is assigned to the first letter of $tally['zero']. For example, this:

$tally = array( "zero" => '01');
$tally['zero']['status'] = 'hello';
echo $tally['zero'];

Would print "h1".

---

In this example, why is an error being thrown?

$tally['zero'] = 0;
$tally['zero']['status'] = 'hello';
echo $tally['zero']['status'];

Like the error says, 0 is not an array. You can’t index it, hence the warning.