Question

When I run the following, I get 'B.C.', but I’m trying to get 'BC'.

I set array_search to do a strict comparison, why isn’t it returning "BC"?

If I pass "Alberta", I get "AB", which is correct.

<?
function cleanProvince($province)
{
    $values = array(
        'AB' => 'Alberta',
        'BC' => 'B.C.',
        'BC' => 'British Columbia',
        'ON' => 'Ontario',
        'ON' => 'Onatrio',
        'ON' => 'Ont',
        'NS' => 'Nova Scotia',
        'QC' => 'Quebec'
    );
    if ($key = array_search(@$province, $values, true)) {
        return $key;
    } else {
        return $province;
    }
}
echo (cleanProvince("B.C."));
?>

Answer 1

You cannot have multiple keys in one array. When you do that, the 2nd one overrides the first.

$values = array(
    'AB'=>'Alberta',
    'BC'=>'B.C.',
    'BC'=>'British Columbia', # Overrides 'B.C.'
    'ON'=>'Ontario',
    'ON'=>'Onatrio', # Overrides 'Ontario'
    'ON'=>'Ont', # Overrides 'Onatrio'
    'NS'=>'Nova Scotia',
    'QC'=>'Quebec',
);

You’re passing "B.C." to cleanProvince. That’s not in $values, so array_search returns false, thus cleanProvince returns "B.C.".