php foreach loop, using continue results in $key always being 0

Question

<?php

$honorifics = array("None", "Miss", "Ms.", "Mrs.", "Mr.", " Mx", " Dr.", "Prof.", "Rabbi", "Reverend", "Imam");
?>

<?php foreach ($honorifics as $index => $honor){
        if ($index = 0) {
          continue;
        }
        echo ( $index );
}?>

prints out

00000000

why?

I saw that removing the continue fixes the problem, but thats not what I want. I wan't to understand what's going wrong.

how to fix?

change `$index = 0` to `$index == 0`, `=` is assignment operator while `==` in comparison operator — Chetan Ameta, Apr 01 '16 at 07:13
how is that ever valid? i mean that's bullshit. The if should require an expression. What I am giving is I assign a variable. You cannot even argue that the result `if(0)` because I assign a parameter, I am not handing it to the `if` — Toskan, Apr 01 '16 at 07:31
`if($index = 0; $index)` that should create said error. Not my code though. — Toskan, Apr 01 '16 at 07:32
in php (and other languages I assume, don't know them all) you can set variable data in a condition, it is quite error prone but in some cases it can be useful, see my edits — kitensei, Apr 01 '16 at 07:40

kitensei · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-01T08:29:44.137

if ($index = 0) {
    continue;
}

store 0 value to $index variable, what you want is if ($index == 0) or, better if (!$index)

In php (and other languages I assume) you can set a variable data in a condition, this is often not what you want ans should be avoided, but sometimes can be useful, take this example:

$len = $query->count()  // mysql query count()

if ($len) {
    // do stuff
}

// this can be shortened to

if ($len = $query->count()) {
    // do stuff if true
    echo $len;  // will echo the actual count()   
}

to avoid errors like this, I usually test my variables like this:

if (0 == $index)

this WILL throw an error if you miss your expression not on purpose :) but nowadays, when using IDE like phpstorm, netbeans or others, generally there is an inspection that warn you about that statement.

EDIT:

Here the inspection to enaable in PHPStorm:

And here the result:

I am using phpstorm and there was no inspection or warning – Toskan Apr 01 '16 at 08:23 — Toskan, Apr 01 '16 at 08:23

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 01 '16 at 07:18

You are assigning 0 to $index in every loop and then checking.

if ($index = 0) {

would work same like -

$index = 0;
if($index) { // if(0) {

Which is false and which is perfectly fine. That's why it is not satisfying the condition and $indexis printing 0 in every loop.

It should be -

if ($index === 0) {

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 01 '16 at 09:17

0

Please change this:

if ($index = 0) {

to this one:

if ($index == 0) {

answered Apr 01 '16 at 09:17

Atif Tariq

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php foreach loop, using continue results in $key always being 0

3 Answers3