I am stuck with php array()?

Question

Does anybody have an idea why following array() is passing into function. I am not able to understand the array() function. I know, if $_POST dont have any value, it will pass array(). but what are the value in array()?

SomeFunction($_POST ? $_POST : array());

Answer 1

array() isn't a function per se, it's a language construct. but simply using array() will create an empty array for you i.e. with zero elements.

you probably want to check for:

isset($_POST) ? $_POST : array()

edit:

as pointed out by greg, $_POST will always be set. so there is no need to check for it and return an empty array. someFunc($_POST) should do exactly the same thing

Answer 2

It's just passing in an empty array if $_POST doesn't evaluate to true.
Why, I don't know...

Answer 3

array() is not a function, it's a language construct to create a new array. If no arguments (excuse the function terminology) are given, an empty array is created. The difference between PHP arrays and say... Java arrays are that PHP arrays are dynamically resized as new elements are added. But the array()-construct also takes parameters as a comma-separated list of key=>value-pairs.

So, you can create arrays in the following ways:

$empty = array();
$autoIndexed = array (1, 2, 3);
$associative = array('key1' => 1, 'key2' => 2);

var_dump($empty, $autoIndexed, $associative);

// Prints:
Array ()
Array (
   [0] => 1
   [1] => 2
   [2] => 3
)
Array (
   [key1] => 1
   [key2] => 2
)