PHP - Grab the first element using a foreach

Question

Wondering what would be a good method to get the first iteration on a foreach loop. I want to do something different on the first iteration.

Is a conditional our b

Answer 1

I saw this solution on a blog post in my search result set that brought up this post and I thought it was rather elegant. Though perhaps a bit heavy on processing.

foreach ($array as $element) 
{
    if ($element === reset($array))
        echo 'FIRST ELEMENT!';

    if ($element === end($array))
        echo 'LAST ELEMENT!';
}

Do note there is also a warning on the post that this will only work if the array values are unique. If your last element is "world" and some random element in the middle is also "world" last element will execute twice.

Answer 2

You can simply add a counter to the start, like so:

$i = 0;

foreach($arr as $a){
 if($i == 0) {
 //do ze business
 }
 //the rest
 $i++;
}

Answer 3

first = true
foreach(...)
    if first
        do stuff
        first = false

Answer 4

Yes, if you are not able to go through the object in a different way (a normal for loop), just use a conditional in this case:

$first = true;
foreach ( $obj as $value )
{
    if ( $first )
    {
        // do something
        $first = false;
    }
    else
    {
        // do something
    }

    // do something
}

Answer 5

foreach($array as $element) {
    if ($element === reset($array))
        echo 'FIRST ELEMENT!';

    if ($element === end($array))
        echo 'LAST ELEMENT!';
}

Answer 6

This is also works

foreach($array as $element) {
    if ($element === reset($array))
        echo 'FIRST ELEMENT!';

    if ($element === end($array))
        echo 'LAST ELEMENT!';
}