limiting array results returned

Question

Hi I would like to limit the results returned depending on what type of product a user selects, $r[1] is the type of product with the array:

    foreach($list as $r) 
{ 
$row_color = ($row_count % 2) ? $color1 : $color2; 
$size2 = $r[2]; 
 echo "<tr>
        <td id=\"id\"><span id=\"non_sorting_header\">" .$r[0]. "</span></td>
        <td id=\"name\"><span id=\"non_sorting_header\">" .$r[1]. "</span></td>
        <td id=\"speed\"><span id=\"sorting_header\">" .kMGTB2($size2). "</span></td>
     <td id=\"download\"><span id=\"sorting_header\">" .$r[3]. " Gb<br />per month</span></td>
        <td id=\"contract\"><span id=\"sorting_header\">1<br />month</span></td>
        <td id=\"info\"><span id=\"non_sorting_header\">".$r[5]."</span></td>
        <td id=\"buy\"><span id=\"non_sorting_header\">".$r[4]."<br />".$r[6]."</span></td>
      </tr>"; 
$row_count++; 
}

So if the user enters 'banana' then the function will find all instances within the array where $r[1] starts with the word 'banana' - start is key as it could be 'banana 1' 'banana 2' etc....

I cannot figure out a slick way to do this...any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

You could use something like the following

function selectFromArray($prefix="", $productArray=array()) {

    return array_filter($productArray,
        create_function('$element', 
             'return (stripos($element[1],"'.$prefix.'") === 0); '));
}

Used like:

$list = selectFromArray("Banana", $list);

then proceed with the rest of your page.

That said, it's usually better to do this kind of filtering in your sql query with a WHERE clause

Answer 2

I don't have enough rep to post a comment, but the above suggestion should work if you just put a semi-colon on the end of

return (stripos($element[1],$prefix) == 0)

so that it looks like:

return (stripos($element[1],$prefix) == 0);

Answer 3

I'm not sure if Jonathan's answer is really the best way to do this.

First of all, create_function() is best avoided. Even without that, though, when using a separate function for it, you're still looping through the list twice. First you loop through the entire list to filter it, and then you loop through the filtered list to print the details. You can easily combine those two:

foreach ($list as $r)
{
    if (stripos($r[1], $prefix) === 0) {
        continue;
    }

    // as before...
}

If that condition gets any more complicated you can of course split it out into a separate function as well.