in_array not working in function

PHP
1

Hi Sitepointers.

Call me old school, but I don’t think much of the new sitepoint design.

I am trying to get an array of distinct items using the following code…however the function seems to add everything to the array with it’s in the array or not.

Please help




$xml = simplexml_load_file($kyero_xml);



$property_provinces_array = kyero_xml_provinces($xml);
$output = $output.'<p> The kyero feed contains the following distinct provinces</p>';
foreach ($property_provinces_array AS $property_province_name) {
	$output = $output.$property_province_name.'<br />';
}


function kyero_xml_provinces($xml) {
	$kyero_xml_provinces = array();
	foreach ($xml->property as $Property) {	
		$property_province = $Property->province;
		if (!in_array($property_province, $kyero_xml_provinces)) {
			array_push($kyero_xml_provinces, $property_province);
		}
	}
	return $kyero_xml_provinces;
}
2

Is there any chance the array somehow gets a zero in it? I am reading elsewhere that it will always return true if that’s the case, though that might be version dependant.

3

try


$property_province = (string) $Property->province;
4

I don’t see offhand how that would be. Did you do a var_dump() or something right after calling the function to be sure?

And just for fun, here are a couple other ways to get the result you’re after.

Use the value as the key. Then you know for sure only one instance of a value will be in there. This wouldn’t work for values which would be invalid for an array key.


function kyero_xml_provinces($xml) {
    $list = array();
    foreach ($xml->property as $Property) {
        $province = $Property->province;
        $list[ $province ] = $province;
    }
    return $list;
    return array_values( $list ); // use this line if you don't want the return value to have those keys
}

Just build the whole list and uniquify it at the end. This might actually be more efficient than the if in your original code, but I don’t know for sure.


function kyero_xml_provinces($xml) {
    $list = array();
    foreach ($xml->property as $Property) {
        $list[] = $Property->province;
    }
    return array_unique( $list );
}
5

Try out the below code.

in_array — Checks if a value exists in an array

It looks like your intention is to check against the index of the array, rather than the value. The values in the array are arrays.

Try using array_key_exists() instead.

For example:

if (array_key_exists($page, $template)) {
$title = $template[$page][‘title’];
$model = $template[$page][‘model’];
echo “yes”;
}
else {
$title = $template[‘index’][‘title’];
$model = $template[‘index’][‘model’];
echo “no”;
}

Hope it works.