Is there a native PHP function for grabbing (and unsetting) an array element?

Question

Hello,

I just wondered if there were an native PHP function that would replicate the following snippet?

<?php
$array = array(0 => 'element1', 1 => 'element2');
$element1 = $array[0];
unset($array[0]);
?>

Basically, I wish to grab an array element but unset that particular key at the same time. Is this possible?

Answer 1

array_shift removed the first item of an array:

$array = array(0 => 'element1', 1 => 'element2');
$element1 = array_shift($array);

But it also reindexes the array so that the remaining array would be equal to:

$array = array('element2');

Answer 2

For a certain cases:

• array_pop() / Pop the element off the end of array
• array_shift() / Shift an element off the beginning of array

General version:

• array_splice() / Remove a portion of the array and replace it with something else

Answer 3

There is array_splice() to extract elements from any position but the way you mention in your question is probably more efficient than that.