PHP find value in an array

While working with a PHP array, the programmer often needs to search for a value while importing the data from the database. To ease the workload, PHP developers have already introduced few inbuilt functions that help the user search and locate a specific value in the given array. Below provided are the two PHP functions used to search values in an array:

PHP | in_array() Function
PHP array_search() Function

This tutorial will briefly cover the syntax, return value, parameters, and various examples of both functions.

1. PHP array_search() function

The PHP array_search() is an inbuilt function that is widely used to search and locate a specific value in the given array. If it successfully finds the specific value, it returns its corresponding key value. If the element is found twice or more, then the first occurrence of the matching value's key will be returned.

Syntax

Parameters

The array_search() function takes three parameters, out of which two parameters are mandatory, and the last one is optional. The parameters of this function are as follows:

$value (required):This parameter represents the value that the user wishes to search in the given array.
$array (required):This parameter represents the original array, in which the user wants to search the element.
strict_parameter (optional): It is an optional parameter that can be set either to TRUE or FALSE. It represents the strictness of the array search. By default, this parameter is set to Boolean FALSE.
- If strict_parameter is set to TRUE, then the function looks for similar values in the array, i.e., a string 200 will not be considered same as integer 200. Hence, both the values are different.
- If strict_parameter is set to Boolean FALSE, strictness is not retained, i.e., a string 200 will be considered same as integer 200.

Return

The array_search() function returns the corresponding element's key that is passed.

It returns a Boolean False, if the search value is not found in the array,
Else it returns True if the value exists in the array. If the search value occurs more than once in the array, then the first matched key is returned.

Example 1: In the below program, we learn how to search for an array value with the help of array_search() function where the strict_parameter is set to its default value .

<?php
// PHP function to demonstrate the use of array_search()

function Search($search_value, $array_name)
{
// using the array_search() function to find specific array value
    return(array_search($search_value, $array_name));
}
//defining the array
$array_name = array("Reema", "Dilip", "Anirudh", "Aniket", "Rohit");
$search_value = "Dilip";
print_r ($search_value ." is at position ");
//will return the position of search value in the array
print_r(Search($search_value, $array_name));
?>

Output

Dilip is at position 1

Example 2: In the below program, we learn how to search for an array value with the help of array_search() function if the strict_parameter is set to FALSE.

<?php
// PHP function to demonstrate the use of array_search()
function Search($search_value, $array)
{
//using array_search() function where strictness is set to false
    return(array_search($search_value, $array,false));
}
//defining the array with two occurrence of search value
$array = array (415, 15, 11, 212, 212, 100, 100);

$search_value = "100";
print_r ($search_value ." is at position ");
//will return the key of the first occurrence
print_r(Search($search_value, $array));
?>

Output

100 is at position 5

Example 3: In the below program, we learn how to search for an array value with the help of array_search() function if the strict_parameter is set to TRUE.

<?php
// PHP function to illustrate the use of array_search()
function Search($search_value, $array)
{
    ////using array_search() function where strcitness is set to True
    return(array_search($search_value, $array, true));
}
//defining the array with two occurrence of search value
$array = array(415, 15, 11, 212, 212, 100, 100);
$search_value = "100";
print_r ($search_value ." is at position ");
//will return the key of the first occurrence if it founds the exact match
//because we are looking for string and the array data is in integer
//array_search() function will return null
print_r(Search($search_value, $array));
?>

Output

100 is at position

2. PHP in_array() Function

The PHP in_array() function is also an inbuilt function that is used to find whether the specified element is present in the given array or not. This function returns a Boolean value TRUE if the given value exists in an array, else it returns FALSE if the value is not found.

Syntax

Parameters

The in_array() function takes the following three parameters, out of which two are mandatory and the remaining one is optional:

$search_value (required): This parameter is used to specify the element or value that the user wants to search in an array. The search_value parameter can hold mixed type values, i.e., it accepts a string or integer type or any other data type values. If the user uses a string type value, that case, the array search will be implemented in a case-sensitive means.
$array_name (required): This parameter represents the array where the user wants to perform the search operation.
$mode (optional): This optional parameter accepts the boolean value, i.e., either True or False. It represents the mode in which the user wants to perform the search operation. By default, this parameter is set to FALSE.
- If mode is set to TRUE, then the function looks for similar values in the array, i.e., a string 200 will not be considered the same as integer 200. Hence, both the values are different.
- If mode is set to Boolean FALSE, strictness is not retained, i.e., a string 200 will be considered the same as integer 200.

Returns

The in_array() function returns a Boolean value i.e., either TRUE or False. It returns a boolean True if the search value is found in the given array. Else it returns FALSE if the value is not found.

Example 1: In the below program, we have implemented the in_array() function to perform the array search operation in a non-strict mode. For this, we have set the last parameter $mode to false, which is its default value.

<?php
$marks = array(10, 615, 710, 7);
$search_value= "10";
//find the element 10 in the array
//by default the mmode parameter is set to false
if (in_array($search_value, $marks))
  {
//in_array() will return true and the strictness mode is set to false
  echo "The element ". $search_value. " exits in the array.";
  }
else
  {
  echo "The element ". $search_value. " does not exists in the array";
  }
?>

Output

The element 10 exits in the array.

Example 2: In the below program, we have implemented the in_array() function to perform the array search operation in a strict mode. For this, we have set the last parameter $mode to True.

<?php
//defining the array
$people = array("Reema", "Indranil", "Rahul", "Varun", 213);
$search_value="23";
if (in_array($search_value, $people, TRUE))
  {
  echo "The element '". $search_value. "' exits in the array. \n";
  }
else
  {
  echo "The element '". $search_value. "' does not exists in the array. \n";
  }
$search_value="Indranil";
if (in_array($search_value, $people, TRUE))
  {
  echo "The element '". $search_value. "' exits in the array. \n";
  }
else
  {
  echo "The element '". $search_value. "' does not exists in the array. \n";
  }
$search_value="Reema";
if (in_array($search_value, $people, TRUE))
 {
  echo "The element '". $search_value. "' exits in the array. \n";
  }
else
  {
  echo "The element '". $search_value. "' does not exists in the array. \n";
  }
?>

Output

The element '23' does not exist in the array. 
The element 'Indranil' does not exists in the array. 
The element 'Reema' does not exists in the array.

Next TopicPHP Codeigniter 3 Ajax Pagination using Jquery

← prev next →