PHP Accessing Values quickly an Arrray holding objects which one element of the object has an array

Question

I have an object which stores an associative array

The objects consist of

class mainObj {
public $name = 0;
public $address = '';
public $someArray = array();
    }

These objects are stored in an array.

objArray[] = obj1;
objArray[] = obj2

My question is: How can I best and easily access the KEY and VALUE of that associative array inside of the object which is itself stored in yet another array?

I can get the keys and values back through iteration...

for ($i=0; $i<count($objArray); $i++)
{
$tempArray = $objArray[$i]->someArray;
    foreach ($tempArray as $key => $value) 
    {
        echo "Key: $key; Value: $value\n";
    }
   }

Re-writing the objects to be an arrays is at this stage possibly too problematic...

In PHP, is there a quicker way to access the associative array keys and values from this array of objects storing the associative array?

Thank you kindly for your answers in advance... Marv

Answer 1

In this case I would create a getter method in your mainObj class, something like this:-

class mainObj
{
    public $name = 0;
    public $address = '';
    public $someArray = array(1 => 'one' ,2 => 'two', 3 => 'three', 4 => 'four');

    public function getSomeArray()
    {
        return $this->someArray;
    }
}

Then you can access $someArray quite easily:-

$obj1 = new mainObj();
$obj1->name = 1;

$obj2 = new mainObj();
$obj2->name = 2;

$obj3 = new mainObj();
$obj3->name = 3;

$objArray = array($obj1, $obj2, $obj3);

foreach($objArray as $obj){
    echo "Object: {$obj->name}<br/>\n";
    foreach($obj->getSomeArray() as $key => $value){
        echo "Key: $key , Value: $value<br/>\n";
    }
}

Output:-

Object: 1
Key: 1 , Value: one
Key: 2 , Value: two
Key: 3 , Value: three
Key: 4 , Value: four
Object: 2
Key: 1 , Value: one
Key: 2 , Value: two
Key: 3 , Value: three
Key: 4 , Value: four
Object: 3
Key: 1 , Value: one
Key: 2 , Value: two
Key: 3 , Value: three
Key: 4 , Value: four

Answer 2

The following does what you want:

foreach ($objArray as $key => $value){
    foreach ($value->someArray as $key => $value){
        echo "Key: $key; Value: $value\n";
    }
}

However, that's assuming a structure like the following. If your structure differs, you'll need to try a slightly different approach:

Array
(
    [0] => mainObj Object
        (
            [someArray] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 3
                    [1] => 4
                    [2] => 5
                )
        )
    [1] => mainObj Object
        (
            [someArray] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 6
                    [1] => 7
                    [2] => 8
                )
        )
    [2] => mainObj Object
        (
            [someArray] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 9
                    [1] => 20
                    [2] => 11
                )
        )
)