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PHP

rob111
rob111
8,379 Points
Posted by rob111
rob111
8,379 Points

How to print "$cars[2][1]<br>";

Trying to figure out why 

print "$cars[2][1]<br>";

does not display "BMW"

Any ideas?

It displays "Array[1]" instead.

<?php 
    $cars = array(
        array('Toyota', '1994', '3,000'),
        array('BMW', '2005', '20,000'),
        array('Ford', '2001', '12,000')
    );
    ?>


    <?php  
    print "$cars[2][1]<br>";
    ?>

2 Answers

Jason Anello
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points

Hi Rob,

If you want array variables to be evaluated within double quotes then you have to wrap it in curly braces.

Like this:

print "{$cars[2][1]}<br>";

Or you could do string concatenation.

print $cars[2][1] . "<br>";

Also, with these indexes you'll get "2001" not "BMW"

Index 2 will access the "Ford" array and then index 1 will access the 2nd element of that array.

rob111
rob111
8,379 Points
rob111
rob111
8,379 Points

OK thanks. Is there any reference material you can point me to so I can find out more about why {} are needed.

Jason Anello
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points

It mentions it in example 4 on this page: http://php.net/manual/en/function.array.php

As in Perl, you can access a value from the array inside double quotes. However, with PHP you'll need to enclose your array between curly braces.

The string parsing section here, http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.parsing, has more details.