Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

PHP Build a Basic PHP Website (2018) Listing and Sorting Inventory Items Random Fun with Arrays

Posted by jlampstack
jlampstack
23,932 Points

How would we write this loop NOT using a function?

I am revisiting this a year later and still having trouble understanding this. I know how to do it, but I simply don't understand. I keep getting crossed up with the $id and $Item.

Can anyone show an example WITHOUT using the function we created?

Thanks in advance!

1 Answer

Jennifer Nordell
seal-mask
STAFF
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher
Jennifer Nordell
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Hi there! Sure, we can do that!

   <ul class="items">
            <?php
            foreach ($catalog as $id=>$item) {
                // echo get_item_html($id,$item);
              $output = "<li><a href='#'><img src='" 
              . $item["img"] . "' alt='" 
              . $item["title"] . "' />" 
              . "<p>View Details</p>"
              . "</a></li>";
              echo $output;
            }
            ?>                              
</ul>

There you go. But I feel like it's not the code that's tripping you up or maybe even the variable names, but rather what is stored in that $catalog. So I'm going to take a look at one at random.

$catalog[201] = [
    "title" => "Forrest Gump",
    "img" => "img/media/forest_gump.jpg",
    "genre" => "Drama",
    "format" => "DVD",
    "year" => 1994,
    "category" => "Movies",
    "director" => "Robert Zemeckis",
    "writers" => [
        "Winston Groom",
        "Eric Roth"
    ],
    "stars" => [
        "Tom Hanks",
        "Rebecca Williams",
        "Sally Field",
        "Michael Conner Humphreys"
    ]
];

The $catalog is an array containing books, movies, and music. Each book, movie, or music resides at a particular index in that $catalog array. So it's just as well to use the index as the $id as anything else, since it must be unique. Inside that entry is a set of key-value pairs. Those key-value pairs comprise the $item as a whole.

In the above code, $id will be equal to 201. That is the index at which this $item is sitting.

Hope this helps somewhat! :sparkles:

jlampstack
jlampstack
23,932 Points

Thanks Jennifer. This is a great explanation! The variable names were tripping me up. For the example I was talking about was for the index.php page for the array_rand($catalog, 4) exercise. This part of the exercise I understand. Are you able to help me with the index page? Thanks!

Jennifer Nordell
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher
Jennifer Nordell
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

jaycode The part I posted in the first black box there is in the index.php page. The only thing I didn't do was do the random bit. But if you want that, too, then here we go:

<ul class="items">
            <?php
             $random = array_rand($catalog, 4);
            foreach ($random as $id) {
                // echo get_item_html($id,$item);
              $output = "<li><a href='#'><img src='" 
              . $catalog[$id]["img"] . "' alt='" 
              . $catalog[$id]["title"] . "' />" 
              . "<p>View Details</p>"
              . "</a></li>";
              echo $output;
            }
            ?>                              
</ul>

That $random variable now contains four "keys" or "indexes" (depending on how semantically correct you want to be). They are integers. And they represent 4 indexes that are currently present in our $catalog. So if it rolled 102, 201, 204, and 303, then we would expect to see "Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship", "Forrest Gump", "The Princess Bride" and "No Fences". This is how that code would look without the function.

So for each integer in the $random array, set that integer to be the value for $id during this iteration. If the first number was 102 then take a look at $catalog[102].

$catalog[102] = [
    "title" => "Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship",
    "img" => "img/media/clean_code.jpg",
    "genre" => "Tech",
    "format" => "Ebook",
    "year" => 2008,
    "category" => "Books",
    "authors" => [
        "Robert C. Martin"
    ],
    "publisher" => "Prentice Hall",
    "isbn" => '978-0132350884'
];

On the first iteration: $catalog[$id]["title"] will be equal to "Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship". Obviously, you could access any other properties you like here as well.

The next iteration of the loop it will get $catalog[201] and so forth.

Hope this helps clarify things! :sparkles: