(PHP) 2D Array first element as “name” for the index

Question

Put simply, I need to take the first column of an array and turn that into a named array, multiple times over within a single 2d array.

$arr[0][0] = "Name" $arr[1][0] = "Version" ...etc, allowing me to then access them as: $arr["Name"][1] = "Bob" $arr["Version"][1] = "1.00"

How do you assign variable names to an index? If that makes sense. I don't know the proper terms for this kind of thing... Or at least not how to use them.

Anyway, the actual array looks like this:

Name,Version,Compact,OpenGFx
Element1,1.0,0,0,1
Element2,1.23,0,0,1
ElementN,1.0,0,0,1

I started writing identifiers to do the same thing ($name=0, $version=1, etc.) but there are 165 columns ! So automation would be much easier, and I am interested in learning new things as always!

Answer 1

If I understand it right, you don't want to be writing out all of the headings right? Maybe you could do something similar to this code:

I've just assumed the format of the input array, you might need to change it around a bit:

$input = array(
    array('name', 'version', 'compact'), // and so on
    array('element1', 1.0, 0),
    array('element2', 1.3, 1) // and so on
);

$headings = array_shift($input);

$output = array();
foreach ($input as $row) {
    $newrow = array();
    foreach ($headings as $index => $name) {
        $newrow[$name] = $row[$index];
    }
    $output[] = $newrow;
}

var_dump($output);

Answer 2

$array = array();

// add your values to the last index
$array['Name'][] = 'Counter Strike';
$array['Version'][] = '1.6';
$array['Name'][] = 'Bob';
$array['Version'][] = '1.0';

// display results
echo $array['Name'][0]; // Counter Strike
echo $array['Version'][0]; // 1.6
echo $array['Name'][1]; // Bob
echo $array['Version'][1]; // 1.0


// sexier way
$element1 = array('Name' => 'Counter Strike', 'Version' => '1.6');
$element2 = array('Name' => 'Bob', 'Version' => '1.0');

// add the element
$array[] = $element1;
$array[] = $element2;
// or
array_push($array, $element1);
array_push($array, $element2);

// display with a loop
foreach ($array as $element) {
    echo $element['Name'];
    echo $element['Version'];
}

// or
echo $array[0]['Name']; // Counter Strike
echo $array[1]['Name']; // Bob

Answer 3

ok what you do is:

$arr = array();
$arr['NAME'] = array();
$arr['VERSION'] = array(); //and so on

//to add to the array:

$arr['NAME'][] = 'john';
//or
$arr['NAME'][0] = 'john';
//etc etc

And then to print all the Names (for example) you can do:

foreach($arr['NAME'] as $name){
   echo $name.'<br/>';
}

Answer 4

I think you want to do your array like this:

$arr[] = array("name" => "nameValue"
                , "version" => 1
                , "compact" => 0 ) //...etc

then you can access it like this:

$currentName = $arr[0]['name'];
$currentVersion = $arr[0]['version'] //...etc