Fastest way to implode an associative array with k

Question

I'm looking for a fast way to turn an associative array in to a string. Typical structure would be like a URL query string but with customizable separators so I can use '&' for xhtml links or '&' otherwise.

My first inclination is to use foreach but since my method could be called many times in one request I fear it might be too slow.

<?php
$Amp = $IsXhtml ? '&amp;' : '&';
$Parameters = array('Action' => 'ShowList', 'Page' => '2');
$QueryString = '';
foreach ($Parameters as $Key => $Value)
        $QueryString .= $Amp . $Key . '=' . $Value;

Is there a faster way?

Answer 1

You can use http_build_query() to do that.

Generates a URL-encoded query string from the associative (or indexed) array provided.

Answer 2

What about this shorter, more transparent, yet more intuitive with array_walk

$attributes = array(
  'data-href'   => 'http://example.com',
  'data-width'  => '300',
  'data-height' => '250',
  'data-type'   => 'cover',
);

$args = "";
array_walk(
    $attributes, 
    function ($item, $key) use (&$args) {
        $args .= $key ." = '" . $item . "' ";  
    }
);
// output: 'data-href="http://example.com" data-width="300" data-height="250" data-type="cover"

Answer 3

As an aside, I was in search to find the best way to implode an associative array but using my own seperators etc...

So I did this using PHP's array_walk() function to let me join an associative array into a list of parameters that could then be applied to a HTML tag....

// Create Params Array
$p = Array("id"=>"blar","class"=>"myclass","onclick"=>"myJavascriptFunc()");

// Join Params
array_walk($p, create_function('&$i,$k','$i=" $k=\"$i\"";'));
$p_string = implode($p,"");

// Now use $p_string for your html tag

Obviously, you could stick that in your own function somehow but it gives you an idea of how you can join an associative array using your own method. Hope that helps someone :)

Answer 4

A one-liner for creating string of HTML attributes (with quotes) from a simple array:

$attrString = str_replace("+", " ", str_replace("&", "\" ", str_replace("=", "=\"", http_build_query($attrArray)))) . "\"";

Example:

$attrArray = array("id"    => "email", 
                   "name"  => "email",
                   "type"  => "email",
                   "class" => "active large");

echo str_replace("+", " ", str_replace("&", "\" ", str_replace("=", "=\"", http_build_query($attrArray)))) . "\"";

// Output:
// id="email" name="email" type="email" class="active large"

Answer 5

echo implode(",", array_keys($companies->toArray()));

$companies->toArray() -- this is just in case if your $variable is an object, otherwise just pass $companies.

That's it!

Answer 6

function array_to_attributes ( $array_attributes )
{

    $attributes_str = NULL;
    foreach ( $array_attributes as $attribute => $value )
    {

        $attributes_str .= " $attribute=\"$value\" ";

    }

    return $attributes_str;
}

$attributes = array(
    'data-href'   => 'http://example.com',
    'data-width'  => '300',
    'data-height' => '250',
    'data-type'   => 'cover',
);

echo array_to_attributes($attributes) ;