Disambiguation - PHP List

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2014-03-07 06:01:11 - Graham Ellis
PHP Lists, or PHPList?

1. Lists in PHP

A PHP "array" - as they're know - is really a linked list in computer science terms [plus an ordered map - another story!]

Let me explain - a linked list is a series of values, one after another held in a single collection, and referenced by a position number in that collection. And the data at each position can be handled / processed in a loop.

  <?php

  $team = array("rOwEnA","colin","reBECCA","Graham","lISa");

  foreach ($team as $friend) {

	    $onmy = ucwords(strtolower($friend));

	    print ("I am writing to $onmy\n");

	    }

  ?>

produces:

  I am writing to Rowena

  I am writing to Colin

  I am writing to Rebecca

  I am writing to Graham

  I am writing to Lisa

The list function lets you name each element of an array a a separate variable, so I could write:

  <?php

  $team = array("rOwEnA","colin","reBECCA","Graham","lISa");

  list ($party,$paid,$starguest,$drinks,$food) = $team;

  print ("The organiser is $party and the catering is by $food\n");

  ?>

produces:

The organiser is rOwEnA and the catering is by lISa

Such lists are particularly useful where you have read a line of data from a file of database, and each element of a line / record relates to a different attribute / propoerty - lots of parties perhaps in our example!

Happy to tell you a lot more about lists on our PHP Courses.

2. PHPlist software

phplist is a piece of open source campaign managing software - see [here]. Whilst I need to manage my mailing lists better, I'm afraid I know little about it. Ah - if only I had the time to learn to be more efficient, I would then have the time ...

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Disambiguation - PHP List