How to get the first item from an associative PHP array

Question

If I had an array like    array  foo     400   array  bar      xyz     And I wanted to get the first item out of that array without knowing the key for it  how would I do that  Is there a function for this

User · Answer

Fake loop that breaks on the first iteration:

$key = $value = NULL;
foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
    break;
}

echo "$key = $value\n";

Or use each() (warning: deprecated as of PHP 7.2.0):

reset($array);
list($key, $value) = each($array);

echo "$key = $value\n";

User · Answer

Starting with PHP 7 3 0 it s possible to do without resetting the internal pointer  You would use array key first  If you re sure that your array has values it in then you can just do    first    array array key first  array      More likely  you ll want to handle the case where the array is empty    first    empty  array      default    array array key first  array

User · Answer

You could use array shift

User · Answer

PHP  lt  7 3 If you don t know enough about the array  you re not sure whether the first key is foo or bar  then the array might well also be  maybe  empty  So it would be best to check  especially if there is the chance that the returned value might be the boolean FALSE   value   empty  arr     default   reset  arr    The above code uses reset and so has side effects  it resets the internal pointer of the array   so you might prefer using array slice to quickly access a copy of the first element of the array   value    default  foreach array slice  arr  0  1  as  value     Assuming you want to get both the key and the value separately  you need to add the fourth parameter to array slice  foreach array slice  arr  0  1  true  as  key   gt   value    To get the first item as a pair  key   gt  value    item   array slice  arr  0  1  true    Simple modification to get the last item  key and value separately  foreach array slice  arr  -1  1  true  as  key   gt   value    performance If the array is not really big  you don t actually need array slice and can rather get a copy of the whole keys array  then get the first item   key   count  arr    array keys  arr  0    null   If you have a very big array  though  the call to array keys will require significant time and memory more than array slice  both functions walk the array  but the latter terminates as soon as it has gathered the required number of items - which is one   A notable exception is when you have the first key which points to a very large and convoluted object  In that case array slice will duplicate that first large object  while array keys will only grab the keys  PHP 7 3  PHP 7 3 onwards implements array key first   as well as array key last    These are explicitly provided to access first and last keys efficiently without resetting the array s internal state as a side effect  So since PHP 7 3 the first value of  array may be accessed with  array array key first  array     You still had better check that the array is not empty though  or you will get an error   firstKey   array key first  array   if  null      firstKey         value    quot Array is empty quot      An error should be handled here   else        value    array  firstKey

User · Answer

another easy and simple way to do it use array values   array values  array  0

User · Answer

You can make    values   array values  array   echo  values 0

User · Answer

There s a few options  array shift   will return the first element  but it will also remove the first element from the array    first   array shift  array     current   will return the value of the array that its internal memory pointer is pointing to  which is the first element by default    first   current  array     If you want to make sure that it is pointing to the first element  you can always use reset     reset  array    first   current  array

User · Answer

reset   gives you the first value of the array if you have an element inside the array    value   reset  array     It also gives you FALSE in case the array is empty

User · Answer

you can just use  array 0   it will give you the first item always

User · Answer

I do this to get the first and last value  This works with more values too     a   array       foo    gt  400       bar    gt   xyz       first   current  a       400  last   end  a        xyz

User · Answer

Just so that we have some other options  reset  arr   good enough if you re not trying to keep the array pointer in place  and with very large arrays it incurs an minimal amount of overhead  That said  there are some problems with it    arr   array 1 2   current  arr      1 next  arr         2 current  arr      2 reset  arr        1 current  arr      1  This was 2 before  We ve changed the array s pointer    The way to do this without changing the pointer    arr reset array keys  arr        OR reset array values  arr      The benefit of  arr reset array keys  arr     is that it raises an warning if the array is actually empty

User · Answer

You can try this   To get first value of the array  -   lt  php     large array   array  foo    gt   bar    hello    gt   world       var dump current  large array      gt    To get the first key of the array     lt  php     large array   array  foo    gt   bar    hello    gt   world        large array keys   array keys  large array      var dump array shift  large array keys      gt

User · Answer

Use reset   function to get the first item out of that array without knowing the key for it like this    x000D   x000D   value   array  foo    gt  400   bar    gt   xyz    x000D  echo reset  value   x000D   x000D   x000D    output    400

User · Answer

We can do   first   reset  array    Instead of   reset  array    first   current  array     As reset     returns the first element of the array after reset

User · Answer

Test if the a variable is an array before getting the first element   When dynamically creating the array if it is set to null you get an error   For Example   if is array  array       reset  array      first   key  array

[php] How to get the first item from an associative PHP array?

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