how to get the last child in an array and set last child to it.

tech · 06-27-2009, 01:51 PM

dear all
In python we can write to get lastchild's last child in contents array and set lastchild to it.
lastChild = lastChild.contents[-1]

but in php

$lastChild=end($lastChild->contents);
//is it proper way to do same thing or any better way.

thanks

Wildhoney · 06-27-2009, 03:57 PM

Well, you could do that, but those functions: end, reset, prev, next, all modify the position of the internal pointer.

For instance:

php Code:

$aFruit = array('Orange', 'Apple', 'Pear');
$szLast = end($aFruit);
echo current($aFruit);

Whilst we do have the last child there in our variable, the current function shows us that the internal pointer has been moved to the last element.

Please take a look at my article on an internal pointers here: http://www.talkphp.com/vbarticles.ph...ents-in-arrays

So, how to get the last child without modifying the internal pointer? Well, we could do the following, which would work in a similar way to Python's:

php Code:

$aFruit = array('Orange', 'Apple', 'Pear');
$szLast = $aFruit[count($aFruit) - 1];
echo $szLast;

The minus one (-1) being necessary because count doesn't start at zero, whereas array keys do.