[FX.php List] foreach vs. first item in array

[Dale Bengston]

Dan,

No apologies necessary! I use the current() function for other  
purposes, but didn't honestly remember that its the first rec if I  
haven't been through the array.

Any time I can reduce something to the point of not needing a  
function, I'm happy. Especially if I didn't have to figure it out  
myself! I should post my code samples more often!

Thanks for the great tip,
Dale

On Dec 13, 2005, at 9:56 PM, DC wrote:

> Sorry, Dale, if this bothers you, but I love optimizing!
>
> PHP is like any deep scripting language in that you can do things  
> in a multitude of ways.
>
> This replaces the key manipulations is the original function with  
> the single current() function.
>
> function getFirstRec($data)
> 	{
> 	return current($data);
> 	}
>
> The current function always has the value of the first array  
> element unless the array has been iterated over. Usually, current()  
> is seen in the midst of array iterations that are programmed by  
> hand for some reason or another, but in this case, current() is the  
> fastest way to get to the first record of an array where the keys  
> are unknown.
>
> Even slimmer - lose the function:
>
> $myFirstRec =current($returnedResult['data']);
>
> HTH,
> dan
>
> On Dec 13, 2005, at 9:47 PM, Dale Bengston wrote:
>
>> Hi Chuck,
>>
>> The array keys of $returnedResult['data'] are recid.modid for each  
>> record, not self-assigned array keys (0, 1, 2 ...). That makes it  
>> harder to pull the nth record without already knowing what its key  
>> is.
>>
>> I wrote a simple function to return the field data of the first  
>> record in the found set, and I just use that. It could easily be  
>> adapted to pull the last record or whatever record you need by  
>> sequential index...
>>
>>
>> $myFirstRec = getFirstRec($returnedResult['data']);
>>
>>
>> function getFirstRec($data)
>> 	{
>> 	$resultKeys = array_keys($data);
>> 	$firstKey = $resultKeys[0];
>> 	$firstRec = $data[$firstKey];
>> 	
>> 	return $firstRec;
>> 	}
>>
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>> Dale
>>
>> --
>> Dale Bengston | Streamline Studio, LLC | dbengston at streamline- 
>> studio.com
>> Associate Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Dec 13, 2005, at 4:36 PM, Charles Ross wrote:
>>
>>> Both in the FX.php in 8 Hours book and here on this mailing list,  
>>> I've seen this line of code to extract a single item from the  
>>> object returned with an FMFind():
>>>
>>> foreach($returnedResult['data'] as $key => $value);
>>>
>>> From what I understand, this is useful when there should be a  
>>> single record returned in $returnedResult. If that's the case,  
>>> why not use:
>>>
>>> $value = $returnedResult['data'][0];
>>>
>>> Is there an advantage to using the foreach rather than the array  
>>> index version? I did some testing, and it seemed to work the  
>>> same, and the latter one seems easier to read and more  
>>> straightforward, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Chuck Ross
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> FX.php_List mailing list
>>> FX.php_List at mail.iviking.org
>>> http://www.iviking.org/mailman/listinfo/fx.php_list
>>
>>
>>
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