Passing an Associative array into another associative array in PHP

Question

apologies if this is a simple fix - I'm having trouble passing a few arrays in PHP. I have two arrays setup eg:

$person = array(
            'height' => 100,
            'build'  => "average",
            'waist'  => 38,
            );

$hobbies = array(
            'climbing' => true,
            'skiing'   => false,
            'waist'    => 38,
            );

now if I perform a print_r() on these arrays they return results as expected.I then insert the 2 arrays into a new array as seen below:

$total = array($person, $hobbies);

using print_r once again returns a new array containing both arrays but it is not associative. However if I try to do the following:

$total = array(
                'person'   <= $person,
                'hobbies'  <= $hobbies,
               );

and I perform a print_r on $total using the code above I am not seeing both arrays with associations. ^ the above data is just an example data but identical in structure in my real app, I get returned the following result:

Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => 1 )

Once again apologies if I am being extremely thick - which I have a feeling I am.

Are you trying to merge the two arrays into a single array? I'm confused. — crush
– crush, Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 22:30
no I want to try and achieve the following structure Array ( [person] (person_data) [hobbies] => (hobby data) ), in reality I am creating a quiz app and need both the question and answer options within one array but separate - so I can loop around the answer options and do cool stuff. — TotalNewbie
– TotalNewbie, Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 22:32

jszobody · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-08 22:38:38Z

2

It sounds like you want the $total array to have person and hobbies keys for the sub-arrays. If so, simply do this:

$total = array("person" => $person, "hobbies" => $hobbies);

Example with output: http://3v4l.org/5U5Hh

edited Jan 8, 2014 at 22:38

answered Jan 8, 2014 at 22:31

jszobody

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3 Comments

crush Over a year ago

Oh, that's what he meant!

TotalNewbie Over a year ago

thanks - sorry me being really slow putting the assignment operators the wrong way around - its been a long day ;)

TotalNewbie Over a year ago

will do - theres a time you have to wait before you can accept - I will do ASAP though :)

mcryan · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-08 22:33:36Z

1

Your array assignments are the wrong way round: 'person' <= $person should be 'person' => $person.

// Wrong
$total = array(
  'person' <= $person,
  'hobbies' <= $hobbies,
);

// Right
$total = array(
  'person' => $person,
  'hobbies' => $hobbies,
);

answered Jan 8, 2014 at 22:33

mcryan

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1 Comment

TotalNewbie Over a year ago

^^ thankyou, I knew it would be something stupid I just couldn't spot it sorry guys, thanks for the help.

Vincent · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-08 22:32:00Z

0

You need to use array_merge, if you want to merge both array into a new array.

$result = array_merge($person, $hobbies);

answered Jan 8, 2014 at 22:32

Vincent

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