php get the first N elements of an array?

Question

What is the best way to accomplish this?

Answer 1

In the current order? I'd say array_slice(). Since it's a built in function it will be faster than looping through the array while keeping track of an incrementing index until N.

Answer 2

Using array_slice (see doc)

Taken from the examples of the documentation

$input = array("a", "b", "c", "d", "e");
$output = array_slice($input, 0, 3);   // returns "a", "b", and "c"

Answer 3

You can use array_slice as:

$sliced_array = array_slice($array,0,$N);