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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Support negative indexes for arrays and strings
From: lester@lsces.co.uk (Lester Caine)

Sherif Ramadan wrote:
> As it stands today, that code would result in the following:
>
> $numbers = array();
> $numbers[-1] = 5;
> $numbers[] = 6;
> var_dump($numbers);
> /*
> array(2) {
>    [-1]=>
>    int(5)
>    [0]=>
>    int(6)
> }
> */

I think that it is just clarifying this further by adding
$numbers = array(0,1,2,3,4);
Which gives
array(7) { [0]=> int(0) [1]=> int(1) [2]=> int(2) [3]=> int(3) [4]=> int(4) 
[-1]=> int(5) [5]=> int(6) }
and
foreach( $numbers as $value ) { print($value); } gives 0123456 as I would have 
expected!
AND print( $numbers[-1] ); still returns '5'

I can NOW use ksort() to really move the '5' to the top of the list.
array(7) { [-1]=> int(5) [0]=> int(0) [1]=> int(1) [2]=> int(2) [3]=> int(3) 
[4]=> int(4) [5]=> int(6) }

Bottom line ... perhaps we need a DIFFERENT means of identifying position in the 
array since using -ve keys IS a valid situation in real life. Personally I use 
-ve positions in the database tables to save having to process all records when 
adding items at the top, so the associative array quite correctly has -ve key 
values. I would not want PHP screwing around with that when reading the array in :)

I think I am right in saying that 'real array' always start at 0 or 1, and 
positioning is explicit. So for simple stings then ne6ative indexes make perfect 
sense. But for PHP 'container arrays' we can legally have -ve keys, and removing 
that is simply not acceptable.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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