Switch two items in associative array

Question

Example:

$arr = array(
  \'apple\'      => \'sweet\',
  \'grapefruit\' => \'bitter\',
  \'pear\'       => \'tasty\',
  \'banana\'     => \'yellow\'
)         


        

Answer 1

This may or may not be an option depending on your particular use-case, but if you initialize your array with null values with the appropriate keys before populating it with data, you can set the values in any order and the original key-order will be maintained. So instead of swapping elements, you can prevent the need to swap them entirely:

$arr = array('apple' => null,
             'pear' => null,
             'grapefruit' => null,
             'banana' => null);

...

$arr['apple'] = 'sweet';
$arr['grapefruit'] = 'bitter'; // set grapefruit before setting pear
$arr['pear'] = 'tasty';
$arr['banana'] = 'yellow';
print_r($arr);

>>> Array
(
    [apple] => sweet
    [pear] => tasty
    [grapefruit] => bitter
    [banana] => yellow
)