PHP's arrays can be keyed by both value and by string... and on this week's PHP course we've covered both. An indexed array (not really an array - rather akin to a list in Perl or Python) starts at index element number 0 and works up from there. Each array member may contain a different type of data, and the members may be of different sizes. And they can be set up initially with an array function call, or by return from any number of functions.

A mixture of ints and floats:
  $speeds = array(0,1,5.5,11,19,28,38,49,61,74,88,102,117);

Strings of different length:
  $windy = array("Calm","Light Air","Light Breeze","Gentle Breeze" ...

The resultant parts from an explode function:
  $current = explode("\t",$station);

The rows of data returned by a web service:
  $stations = file("http://www.wellho.net/data/railstats.xyz");

Once an array has been set up, you can even add other values onto the end of it ...

Source code example, together with a demonstration of looping through an array to find a threshhold value (conversion of wind speed to beaufort scale) from the course - [here].

(written 2013-04-24, updated 2013-05-04)

 H106 - PHP - Arrays
  [409] Functions and commands with dangerous names - (2005-08-11)
  [603] PHP - setting sort order with an associative array - (2006-02-13)
  [773] Breaking bread - (2006-06-22)
  [832] Displaying data at 5 items per line on a web page - (2006-08-14)
  [1116] PHP adding arrays / summing arrays - (2007-03-23)
  [1199] Testing for one of a list of values. - (2007-05-22)
  [1451] More PHP sample and demonstration programs - (2007-12-01)
  [1614] When an array is not an array - (2008-04-17)
  [2215] If nothing, make it nothing. - (2009-06-02)
  [2274] PHP preg functions - examples and comparision - (2009-07-08)
  [2915] Looking up a value by key - associative arrays / Hashes / Dictionaries - (2010-08-11)
  [2920] Sorting - naturally, or into a different order - (2010-08-14)
  [3004] Increment operators for counting - Perl, PHP, C and others - (2010-10-18)
  [3379] Sorting data the way YOU want it sorted - (2011-08-05)
  [3534] Learning to program in PHP - Regular Expression and Associative Array examples - (2011-12-01)
  [4072] Splitting the difference with PHP - (2013-04-27)
  [4244] Disambiguation - PHP List - (2014-03-07)

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Forward to Even early on, separate out your program from your HTML!

Setting up strings in PHP
Passing variable between PHP pages - hidden fields, cookies and sessions
Even early on, separate out your program from your HTML!
Arrays in PHP - contain different and even mixed data types
The woman, the television, the bullock and Darlington
MVC and Frameworks - a lesson from first principles in PHP
Handling requests to a forum - the background process
Apache httpd - a robust, open source web server
Backups by crossover between network centres - setting up automatic scp transfers