[SOLVED] Function take array as argument? Newbie Q

[sw9]

Hi Everyone,

 

I am trying to write my own function that can take two parameters, but the 2nd parameter needs to be able to take multiple values (so I'm assuming an array). I am not sure how to write that up when creating my function. Here is an example of what I'm thinking:

 

<?php

function video_airtime_by_category($videoID, array){

}

// Then I would call the function like this?
video_airtime_by_category('21059', array($category1, $category2, $category3));
?>

 

Can anyone help me on how to properly do this?

[tdpaxton]

<?php

function video_airtime_by_category($videoID, $temp = array()){
// $temp[0] = $category1
// $temp[1] = $category2
// $temp[2] = $category3

}


// Then I would call the function like this?
video_airtime_by_category('21059', array($category1, $category2, $category3));
?>

[Aeglos]

It's just the same as a normal argument.

 

function video_airtime_by_category($videoID, $catArray)
{
    //Simple loop to echo the arguments.
    foreach ($catArray as $key=>$value) {
        echo $key .' -> '. $value .'<br/>';
    }

    echo $videoID;
}

video_airtime_by_category('69', array('php', 'oop', 'foo')); //valid
video_airtime_by_category('69', array('php')); //valid
video_airtime_by_category('69', 'php'); // not valid, can't loop through a single variable.

 

That code assumes you pass an array, so you should check if it's a single variable also, like:

 

function video_airtime_by_category($videoID, $categories)
{
    if (is_array($categories) {
        foreach ($catArray as $key=>$value) {
            echo $key .' -> '. $value .'<br/>';
        }
    } else {
        echo $categories;
    }

    echo $videoID;
}

video_airtime_by_category('69', array('php', 'oop', 'foo')); //valid
video_airtime_by_category('69', array('php')); //valid
video_airtime_by_category('69', 'php'); // also valid

 

Or you can also type hint the second argument to accept ONLY arrays:

function video_airtime_by_category($videoID, array $categories)
{
   // some code.
}

video_airtime_by_category('69', array('php', 'oop', 'foo')); //valid
video_airtime_by_category('69', array('php')); //valid
video_airtime_by_category('69', 'php'); // not valid, will return an error.

 

What you posted in as

function video_airtime_by_category($videoID, $temp = array())
{ }

 

Is only giving a default empty array value to the second parameter. If you do that you can basically call the function without the $temp argument or override it, like:

 

//All this ways would be valid
video_airtime_by_category('69', array('php', 'oop', 'foo')); 
video_airtime_by_category('69', array('php'));
video_airtime_by_category('69', 'php');
video_airtime_by_category('69');

 

Whether it will error out or not depends on what the function does. If you don't pass the second argument it will default to an empty array and if you pass it a string it won't be an array inside so you must account for all those cases.

[sw9]

Thank you very much for these detailed responses. I definitely want to require the second parameter, so I appreciate the extra code that was described. Upon trying to fill out my function, I realized I am not exactly sure how to treat that array parameter to fit into my mysql statement. Here is what I want to do, but I can't figure out how to parse each $terms value without making the mysql query run alongside a foreach. So if my call to the function is this:

 

<?php 
print get_program_nid_from_showing_by_taxonomy( $showing_nid, '312', '222' ); ?>

 

then I would want the WHERE clause to show up as WHERE tn.tid IN ('312', '222'), but as it is below it only takes the first value.

 

<?php 
function pegevent_get_program_nid_from_showing_by_taxonomy ( $showing_nid, $terms ){
    $qs = "select cs.field_program_nid from content_type_content_showing cs
           LEFT JOIN term_node tn ON (cs.field_program_nid = tn.nid)
           WHERE tn.tid IN ($terms)
           AND cs.nid = $showing_nid";
    $qr = db_query( $qs ); $row = mysql_fetch_array( $qr );
    if ($row[0]){
                return $row[0];
        }
} ?> 

 

I appreciate any help in advance!

[DarkWater]

function video_airtime_by_category($videoID, array $categories)

{

  // some code.

}

 

That's probably your best bet, but it'll throw an error if you don't pass it an array, so make sure it's an array.

[Aeglos]

So it's a mixed problem between string composition and array handling. The trick is to loop through the array and with it make a desired string to insert in the query, or ther shorter path; imploding it, or both.

 

Let's say you type hint the argument for the sake of making it mandatory, you can do something like this:

 

function pegevent_get_program_nid_from_showing_by_taxonomy ( $showing_nid, array $terms )
{
    //Initial empty string.
    $terms_string = '';
    
    //Loops through the array single-quoting each element;
    foreach ($terms as $key => $value) {
        $terms[$key] = " '{$value}' ";
    }

    $terms_string = implode(', ', $terms);

    /* 
        At this point the $terms_string holds a string in the form of:  '301', '784', 'foo', 'xyz', '123'
        If you don't include the quoting loop, you can just implode the array.
        if so it will have the form: 301, 784, foo, xyz, 123
    */

    $qs = "select cs.field_program_nid from content_type_content_showing cs
           LEFT JOIN term_node tn ON (cs.field_program_nid = tn.nid)
           WHERE tn.tid IN ($terms_string)
           AND cs.nid = $showing_nid";
    $qr = db_query( $qs ); $row = mysql_fetch_array( $qr );
    if ($row[0]){
                return $row[0];
        }
}

 

That should do the trick. Regards.

[sw9]

Thank you very much for the response. It took me awhile to get back because I realized that the effect of the above wasn't giving me exactly what I needed. I needed to make nested sql statements for each of the terms in the array. Here is the final result:

 

<?php
function pegevent_get_program_nid_from_showing_by_taxonomy ( $showing_nid, array $terms ) {
    // I need to extract the first term from the array for a separate mysql statement, then we slice the array to keep the rest of the terms
   $numTerms = count($terms);
   $lessTerms = $numTerms - 1;
   $newTerms = array_slice($terms, 1, $lessTerms); 

   $terms_string = '';
    
    //Loops through the array to make a nested statement for every array element after the first one;
    foreach ($newTerms as $key => $value) {
        $newTerms[$key] = " AND tn.nid IN (SELECT nid FROM term_node WHERE tid = '{$value}')";
    }

    $terms_string = implode(' ', $newTerms);

    $qs = "select distinct cs.field_program_nid from content_type_content_showing cs
           LEFT JOIN term_node tn ON (cs.field_program_nid = tn.nid)
           WHERE tn.nid IN (SELECT nid FROM term_node WHERE tid = '".$terms[0]."')".$terms_string.
           " AND cs.nid = $showing_nid";

    // die($qs);       
    $qr = db_query( $qs ); $row = mysql_fetch_array( $qr );
    if ($row[0]){
                return $row[0];
        }
} // End pegevent_get_program_nid_from_showing_by_taxonomy
?>