PHP Array Destructuring

Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use PHP array destructuring to assign elements of an array to multiple variables.

Introduction to the PHP array destructuring

Suppose that you have an array returned by a function parse_url():

<?php

$urls = parse_url('https://www.python-tutorials.in/'); var_dump($urls);

Code language: PHP (php)

Output:

array(3) {
 ["scheme"]=>  string(5) "https"
 ["host"]=> string(19) "www.python-tutorials.in"
 ["path"]=> string(1) "/"
 }

Code language: PHP (php)

To assign the elements of the array to multiple variables, you can use the list() construct like this:

<?php
list('scheme' => $scheme,
 'host' => $host,
 'path'=>$path
 ) = parse_url('https://www.python-tutorials.in/');

var_dump($scheme, $host, $path);

Code language: PHP (php)

Output:

string(5) "https"
 string(19) "www.python-tutorials.in"
 string(1) "/"

Code language: PHP (php)

PHP 7.1 introduced a new way of unpacking the array’s elements to variables. It’s called array destructuring:

<?php
[
 'scheme' => $scheme,
 'host' => $host,
 'path'=>$path
 ] = parse_url('https://www.python-tutorials.in/');

var_dump($scheme, $host, $path);

Code language: PHP (php)

Output:

string(5) "https"
 string(19) "www.python-tutorials.in"
 string(1) "/"

Code language: PHP (php)

Like the list(), the array destructuring works with both indexed and associative arrays. For example:

<?php
$person = ['John','Doe'];
 [$first_name, $last_name] = $person;

var_dump($first_name, $last_name);

Code language: PHP (php)

Output:

string(4) "John"
 string(3) "Doe"

Code language: PHP (php)

Skipping elements

The array destructuring syntax also allows you to skip any elements. For example, the following skips the second element of the array:

<?php
$person = ['John','Doe', 24];
 [$first_name, , $age] = $person;

var_dump($first_name, $age);

Code language: PHP (php)

Output:

string(4) "John"
 int(24)

Code language: PHP (php)