Array problem

[hvle]

hi guys,

I have 2 ways of storing record in an array, and I wanna know which one is better (efficiency).

method 1:
$book[] = array('name' => 'name1', 'email' => 'email1');
$book[] = array('name' => 'name2', 'email' => 'email2');
$book[] = array('name' => 'name3', 'email' => 'email3');

method 2:
$book['name'] = array('name1', 'name2', 'name3');
$book['email'] = array('email1', 'email2', 'email3');


thank you very much for any suggestion

[.josh]

personally, i'd go for method 1. 

[effigy]

I prefer a hash (associative array). I'm not sure if there are any efficiency differences; if there are, it would depend on how many records you are storing and what you are doing with them.

[Buyocat]

I'd go one step further, if you can, and make it:
[code]
books = array(book1 => array(name => Catch22, email =>someemail)...))
[/code]

[hvle]

method 1 may seem very easy to manipulate, but I got a lot of trouble w/ sorting, and finding out duplication.

A hash method, can you explain what it is?

The # of records are reasonably small considering # of addresses in your address book, so the number is around 5 to 200.  I need to do some database operation like sorting, filtering duplication, insertion.  These operations done inside script, so no database involved.

thanks

[hvle]

[quote author=Buyocat link=topic=99667.msg392609#msg392609 date=1152201958]
I'd go one step further, if you can, and make it:
[code]
array(book => array(book1 => array(name => Catch22, email =>someemail)...)))
[/code]
[/quote]
can you point out the advantage with this way cuz I can not see it.

[Buyocat]

There are all sorts of functions of sorting/sifting through arrays.  I'll let you choose which ones suit your needs...
http://us3.php.net/array

[effigy]

[url=http://www.samspublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=31840&seqNum=6&rl=1]Sorting Multidimensional Arrays[/url]

[hvle]

that's a good link http://us3.php.net/array
Thank you very much.

array_multisort, it doesn't explain much in the manual.