How to display only First and Last element of the array with foreach loop in PHP

Question

I have student exam scores in an array and want to show only the first and last exam score when student selects for

how do I show first and last element only of an array with foreach loop in PHP.

so far I have done the below method which works for me but it seems not an efficient method

$y = 0; 

$student_total_sessions = $total_counter = sizeof($student_exam_session_data);

if($this->data['show_sessions'] != 'all_sessions')
{
    $student_total_sessions = ($student_total_sessions > 2) ? 2 : $student_total_sessions;
}

foreach ($student_exam_session_data as $student_session_id => $student_session_data) 
{ 
    $y++;
    // only show first and last in case show sessions is pre and post
    if($this->data['show_sessions'] != 'all_sessions' && $y > 1 && $y != $total_counter)
    {
        continue;
    }
    else
    {
        echo $student_session_data['exam_score'];
    }
} 

Answer 1

To display the first element of array

echo $array[0];//in case of numeric array
echo reset($array);// in case of associative array

To display the last element

echo $array[count($array)-1];//in case of numeric array
echo end($myArray);// in case of associative array

Answer 2

If your array has unique array values, then determining the first and last element is trivial:

foreach($array as $element) {
    if ($element === reset($array))
        echo 'FIRST ELEMENT!';

    if ($element === end($array))
        echo 'LAST ELEMENT!';
}

This works if last and first elements are appearing just once in an array, otherwise you get false positives. Therefore, you have to compare the keys (they are unique for sure).

foreach($array as $key => $element) {
    reset($array);
    if ($key === key($array))
        echo 'FIRST ELEMENT!';

    end($array);
    if ($key === key($array))
        echo 'LAST ELEMENT!';
}

Answer 3

I wrote a blog post about exactly this a while back. Basically:

// Go to start of array and get key, for later comparison
reset($array)
$firstkey = key($array);
// Go to end of array and get key, for later comparison
end($array);
$lastkey = key($array);

foreach ($array as $key => $element) {
  // If first element in array
  if ($key === $firstkey)
    echo 'FIRST ELEMENT = '.$element;

  // If last element in array
  if ($key === $lastkey)
    echo 'LAST ELEMENT = '.$element;
} // end foreach

OR for PHP 7.3 and up use array_key_first and array_key_last :

foreach($array as $key => $element) {
  // If first element in array
  if ($key === array_key_first($array))
    echo 'FIRST ELEMENT = '.$element;

  // If last element in array
  if ($key === array_key_last($array))
    echo 'LAST ELEMENT = '.$element;
} // end foreach