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PHP

Array echo 'foreach' question

Can someone explain how the php "knows" to echo three list items of flavor? Where does it tell it to go back to the top and repeat 'echo'ing' again until the array is all printed out? <?php foreach ($flavors as $flavor) { ?> <li><?php echo $flavor; ?></li> <? } ?>

This is from the code challenge, after "Introducing Array's", in PHP

4 Answers

Mike Costa
PLUS
Mike Costa
Courses Plus Student 26,362 Points

Hey Jen,

I could be wrong, but the foreach loop in php is shorthand for a regular for loop. It could also be known as an enhanced for loop. For arrays, it figures out the count of the array, and resets the array's pointer to the beginning of the array. So if you had an array of flavors:

$flavors = array('vanilla', 'chocolate', 'strawberry', 'rocky road');

The for each loop will count that there are 4 values in the array and iterate through the elements of the array.

foreach($flavors as $flavor)

assigns each elements into the $flavor variable after each pass.
This is what the foreach loop is basically doing:

 for($i = 0; $i < count($flavors); $i++) {

$flavor = $flavors[$i];
echo $flavor;
}
Randy Hoyt
STAFF
Randy Hoyt
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Hey Jen,

It's the foreach command that handles the looping. In this code example ...

$flavors = array('vanilla', 'chocolate', 'strawberry', 'rocky road');
foreach ($flavors as $flavor) {

    // some code to be executed
    // for each element in the array

}

... the foreach command tells PHP to go through the $flavors array one element at a time and for each of them execute the block of code inside the curly brackets.

Does that make sense?

Thank you Mike and Randy! Duh, It was late when I did the video & challenge. It was mentioned in one of the videos come to think of it.