How to write a foreach that will produce the results I want

Question

I am having a hard time getting the correct data out of an array. I wrote a nested foreach loop but the inner loop is throwing the "Invalid argument supplied for foreach()" error. Can someone please help me out with this? Thanks.

foreach($row as $val)
{
    echo $val['title'].'<br>';
    echo $val['author'].'<br>';
    echo $val['post'].'<br>';
    echo $val['entry_date'].'<br>';
    echo $val['comments'].'<br>';

    foreach($val as $val2)
    {
        echo $val['comments'].'<br>';
    }
}

---

Array
(
    [title] => First Blog
    [author] => Administrator
    [post] => Testing entry number one
    [entry_date] => Fri, 23 Oct 2009
    [comments] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [commenter] => Sally Anderson
                    [comments] => comment 1 post 1
                    [comment_date] => October 24th, 2009 at 5:24 AM
                )

            [1] => Array
                (
                    [commenter] => Mike Jones
                    [comments] => comment 2 post 1
                    [comment_date] => October 24th, 2009 at 5:21 AM
                )
        )
)
Array
(
    [title] => Second Blog
    [author] => Administrator
    [post] => Testing entry number two
    [entry_date] => Sat, 24 Oct 2009
    [comments] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [commenter] => Sally Anderson
                    [comments] => comment 1 post 2
                    [comment_date] => October 24th, 2009 at 5:21 AM
                )

            [1] => Array
                (
                    [commenter] => Mike Jones
                    [comments] => comment 2 post 2
                    [comment_date] => October 24th, 2009 at 5:21 AM
                )
        )
)

Answer 1

Assuming $rows is the structure at the bottom of your question (an array of arrays) then:

foreach ($rows as $row) {
  echo <<<END
$row[title]<br>
$row[author]<br>
$row[post]<br>
$row[entry_date]<br>
END;
  foreach ($row['comments'] as $comment) {
    echo <<<END
$comment[comments]<br>
$comment[commentor]<br>
$comment[comment_date]<br>
END;
  }
}

I strongly suggest you choose meaningful names (like $comment and $row) rather than meaningless names like $val and $val2 as these are just going to cause confusion.

Also I've used heredoc syntax in the revised version as I tend to think that can make things much more readable but that's optional. A better alternative might be:

<?php foreach ($rows as $row): ?>
<?php echo $row['title'] ?><br>
<?php echo $row['post'] ?><br>
<?php echo $row['entry_date'] ?><br>
<?php foreach ($row['comments'] as $comment): ?>
<?php echo $comment['comments'] ?><br>
<?php echo $comment['commentor'] ?><br>
<?php echo $comment['comment_date'] ?><br>
<?php endforeach; ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>

which can be useful if you've got a lot of HTML interspersed. The above switched to using alternative control structures, which is optional but is often considered more readable in this type of code.

Lastly, you could PHP short tags, which some people don't like (either because they might be disabled or they interface with XML processing instructions) but I generally prefer:

<? foreach ($rows as $row): ?>
<?= $row['title'] ?><br>
<?= $row['post'] ?><br>
<?= $row['entry_date'] ?><br>
<? foreach ($row['comments'] as $comment): ?>
<?= $comment['comments'] ?><br>
<?= $comment['commentor'] ?><br>
<?= $comment['comment_date'] ?><br>
<? endforeach; ?>
<? endforeach; ?>

Answer 2

change

foreach($val as $val2)
{
    echo $val['comments'].'<br>';
}

to

foreach($val['comments'] as $val2)
{
    echo $val2['comments'].'<br>';
}