phparrays

Get the first element of an array

I have an array:

array( 4 => 'apple', 7 => 'orange', 13 => 'plum' )

I would like to get the first element of this array. Expected result: string apple

One requirement: it cannot be done with passing by reference, so array_shift is not a good solution.

How can I do this?

Solution

  • Original answer, but costly (O(n)):

    array_shift(array_values($array));

    In O(1):

    array_pop(array_reverse($array));

    Other use cases, etc...

    If modifying (in the sense of resetting array pointers) of $array is not a problem, you might use:

    reset($array);

    This should be theoretically more efficient, if a array "copy" is needed:

    array_shift(array_slice($array, 0, 1));

    With PHP 5.4+ (but might cause an index error if empty):

    array_values($array)[0];