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Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2016 16:51:36 -0500
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To: bishop@php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] array_key_(first|last|index) functions proposal
From: jbafford@zort.net (John Bafford)


> On Jan 1, 2016, at 16:38, Bishop Bettini <bishop@php.net> wrote:
>=20
> On Fri, Jan 1, 2016 at 3:44 PM, John Bafford <jbafford@zort.net> =
wrote:
> Happy New Year, everyone!
>=20
> I=E2=80=99d like to present the first new PHP RFC for this year, a =
proposal to add functions to easily get the first, last, or an arbitrary =
key (and value) by index from an array, taking advantage of PHP=E2=80=99s =
property that arrays are ordered maps.
>=20
> Thanks for submitting this RFC!  I am +1, with one quibble: obtaining =
the value by reference seems non-sequitur to the function itself and PHP =
in general.  IOW, this seems more PHPesque to me:
>=20
> // get the next to last value
> $key =3D array_key_index($arr, -2);
> $val =3D $arr[$key];
>=20
> Sincerely,
> bishop

While relatively rare for PHP, these aren't the only functions that have =
an optional second return value by reference. (preg_match, preg_replace, =
str_replace, among others.)

I agree that that=E2=80=99s a bit unusual in terms of PHP, but, if you =
actually need both the key and the value, this way you can do it in one =
call, rather than having to access the array and pull the value out of =
it separately. The C code already has a reference to the hashtable =
bucket, so returning the value if it=E2=80=99s needed is trivial.

-John