How to check if variable is array?… or something array-like

Question

I want to use a foreach loop with a variable, but this variable can be many different types, NULL for example.

So before foreach

Answer 1

Since PHP 7.1 there is a pseudo-type iterable for exactly this purpose. Type-hinting iterable accepts any array as well as any implementation of the Traversable interface. PHP 7.1 also introduced the function is_iterable(). For older versions, see other answers here for accomplishing the equivalent type enforcement without the newer built-in features.

Fair play: As BlackHole pointed out, this question appears to be a duplicate of Iterable objects and array type hinting? and his or her answer goes into further detail than mine.

Answer 2

<?php
$var = new ArrayIterator();

var_dump(is_array($var), ($var instanceof ArrayIterator));

returns bool(false) or bool(true)

Answer 3

If you are using foreach inside a function and you are expecting an array or a Traversable object you can type hint that function with:

function myFunction(array $a)
function myFunction(Traversable)

If you are not using foreach inside a function or you are expecting both you can simply use this construct to check if you can iterate over the variable:

if (is_array($a) or ($a instanceof Traversable))

Answer 4

You can check instance of Traversable with a simple function. This would work for all this of Iterator because Iterator extends Traversable

function canLoop($mixed) {
    return is_array($mixed) || $mixed instanceof Traversable ? true : false;
}

Answer 5

foreach can handle arrays and objects. You can check this with:

$can_foreach = is_array($var) || is_object($var);
if ($can_foreach) {
    foreach ($var as ...
}

You don't need to specifically check for Traversable as others have hinted it in their answers, because all objects - like all arrays - are traversable in PHP.

More technically:

foreach works with all kinds of traversables, i.e. with arrays, with plain objects (where the accessible properties are traversed) and Traversable objects (or rather objects that define the internal get_iterator handler).

(source)

Simply said in common PHP programming, whenever a variable is

• an array
• an object

and is not

• NULL
• a resource
• a scalar

you can use foreach on it.

Answer 6

Functions

<?php

/**
 * Is Array?
 * @param mixed $x
 * @return bool
 */
function isArray($x) : bool {
  return !isAssociative($x);
}

/**
 * Is Associative Array?
 * @param mixed $x
 * @return bool
 */
function isAssociative($x) : bool {
  if (!is_array($array)) {
    return false;
  }
  $i = count($array);
  while ($i > 0) {
    if (!isset($array[--$i])) {
      return true;
    }
  }
  return false;
}

Example

<?php

$arr = [ 'foo', 'bar' ];
$obj = [ 'foo' => 'bar' ];

var_dump(isAssociative($arr));
# bool(false)

var_dump(isAssociative($obj));
# bool(true)

var_dump(isArray($obj));
# bool(false)

var_dump(isArray($arr));
# bool(true)