Fastest way to handle undefined array key

I did some bench marking with the following code:

set_time_limit(100);

$count = 2500000;
$search_index_end = $count * 1.5;
$search_index_start = $count * .5;

$array = array();
for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++)
    $array[md5($i)] = $i;

$start = microtime(true);
for ($i = $search_index_start; $i < $search_index_end; $i++) {
    $key = md5($i);
    $test = isset($array[$key]) ? $array[$key] : null;
}
$end = microtime(true);
echo ($end - $start) . " seconds<br/>";

$start = microtime(true);
for ($i = $search_index_start; $i < $search_index_end; $i++) {
    $key = md5($i);
    $test = array_key_exists($key, $array) ? $array[$key] : null;
}
$end = microtime(true);
echo ($end - $start) . " seconds<br/>";


$start = microtime(true);
for ($i = $search_index_start; $i < $search_index_end; $i++) {
    $key = md5($i);
    $test = @$array[$key];
}
$end = microtime(true);
echo ($end - $start) . " seconds<br/>";

$error_reporting = error_reporting();
error_reporting(0);
$start = microtime(true);
for ($i = $search_index_start; $i < $search_index_end; $i++) {
    $key = md5($i);
    $test = $array[$key];
}
$end = microtime(true);
echo ($end - $start) . " seconds<br/>";
error_reporting($error_reporting);

$start = microtime(true);
for ($i = $search_index_start; $i < $search_index_end; $i++) {
    $key = md5($i);
    $tmp = &$array[$key];
    $test = isset($tmp) ? $tmp : null;
}
$end = microtime(true);
echo ($end - $start) . " seconds<br/>";

and I found that the fastest running test was the one that uses isset($array[$key]) ? $array[$key] : null followed closely by the solution that just disables error reporting.

This Work for me

{{ isset($array['key']) ? $array['key']: 'Default' }} 

but this is fast

{{ $array['key'] or 'Default' }}

The @ operator and the error_reporting methods will both be slower than using isset. With both of these methods, it modifies the error reporting setting for PHP, but PHP's error handler will still be called. The error handler will check against the error_reporting setting and exit without reporting anything, however this has still taken time.

Just a sudden idea that would have to be tested, but did you try using array_intersect_key() to get the existing values and a array_merge to fill() the rest ? It would remove the need of a loop to access the data. Something like that :

$searched_keys = array ('key1' => null, 'key2' => null); // the list of the keys to find

$exiting_values = array_intersect_key($lookup_table, $searched_keys);
$all_values = array_merge($searched_keys, $exiting_keys);

Please note that I did not tried it performance-wise.

There are two typical approaches to this.

1. Define defaults for an undefined key.
2. Check for undefined key.

Here is how to perform the first and as little code as possible.

$data = array_merge(array($key=>false),$data);
return $data[$key];

Here is how to perform the second.

return isset($data[$key]) ? $data[$key] : false;

I prefer using the isset function instead of escaping the error. I made a function to check the key exists and if not returns a default value, in the case of nested arrays you just need to add the other keys in order:

Nested array lookup:

/**
 * Lookup array value.
 *
 * @param array $array
 * @param array $keys
 * @param $defaultValue
 */
public static function array_key_lookup($array, $keys, $defaultValue)
{
    $value = $array;
    foreach ($keys as $key) {
        if (isset($value[$key])) {
            $value = $value[$key];
        } else {
            $value = $defaultValue;
            break;
        }
    }

    return $value;
}

Usage example:

$array = [
    'key1' => 'value1',
    'key2' => 'value2',
    'key3' => [
        'key3a' => 'value3a',
        'key3b' => 'value3b'
    ]
];

array_key_lookup($array, ['key3', 'key3a'], 'default')
'value3a'

array_key_lookup($array, ['key2', 'key2a'], 'default')
'default'

array_key_lookup($array, ['key2'], 'default')
'value2'

array_key_lookup($array, ['key5'], 'default')
'default'

Escaping the error:

$value = @$array[$key1][$key2] ?: $defaultValue;

First, re-organize the data for performance by saving a new array where the data is sorted by the keys, but the new array contains a regular numeric index.

This part will be time consuming, but only done once.

 // first sort the array by it's keys
 ksort($data);

 // second create a new array with numeric index
 $tmp = new array();
 foreach($data as $key=>$value)
 {
    $tmp[] = array('key'=>$key,'value'=>$value);
 }
 // now save and use this data instead
 save_to_file($tmp);

Once that is done it should be quick to find the key using a Binary Search. Later you can use a function like this.

  function findKey($key, $data, $start, $end)
  { 
    if($end < $start) 
    { 
        return null; 
    } 

    $mid = (int)(($end - $start) / 2) + $start; 

    if($data[$mid]['key'] > $key) 
    { 
        return findKey($key, $data, $start, $mid - 1); 
    } 
    else if($data[$mid]['key'] < $key) 
    { 
        return findKey($key, $data, $mid + 1, $end); 
    } 

    return $data[$mid]['value'];
 }

To perform a search for a key you would do this.

 $result = findKey($key, $data, 0, count($data));
 if($result === null)
 {
      // key not found.
 }

If the count($data) is done all the time, then you could cache that in the file that you stored the array data.

I suspect this method will be a lot faster in performance then a regular linear search that is repeated against the $data. I can't promise it's faster. Only an octree would be quicker, but the time to build the octree might cancel out the search performance (I've experienced that before). It depends on how much searching in the data you have to do.