Array problems

[Skepsis]

Okay, so basically I have a calendar.

 

In this calendar, it highlights the day we are on in the week with a certain color.

 

What it also does, is checks if there was a forum post in any news category, and highlights that day blue.

 

Well, I added a events system, which has events/birthdays.

 

It now highlights events/birthdays in the same color news posts are highlighted.

 

The original code was not meant for me to add this, but I have.

 

The workaround I'd like to use, is set a "type" to the array, possibly a sub array including the type.

 

I'm not sure if this is the proper way I should be going about this though.

 

So basically, I'm asking for your input, and suggestions, on what I should do, or what I can do.

 

http://pastebin.com/m740c013

 

The array looks like this as of now.

 

$usable => Array (3)
(
    ['8'] = String(1) "1"
    ['17'] = String(1) "3"
    ['13'] = String(1) "1"
)

 

8,17,13 are the dates of the posts/events made. Well, minus 1, so the actual dates are, the 9th,18th,14th.

 

I tried adding a variable to the code that stores the array into $usable, called $type, so I could just do:

if(isset($usable[$i]) && $usable[$i]==TRUE  && type == 'news') {

 

But adding a variable seemed to give me trouble.

 

What can I do? What's the best/efficient way of doing this, so if I add more modules in the future, I wouldn't stumble across this problem anymore?

 

Thanks guys, hopefully I only need to come here for help and not go to any other place.

[rhodesa]

I would create Classes...so have a separate class for each type of item. Then you can have methods (or attributes) that return different info. For example, in your classes you can have a getColor() method that returns the bgcolor for that type of event. This allows you to easily add more types of events later on too.

[Skepsis]

Sorry.  I'm waiting until I master the basics of regular php, before I move onto object oriented code.

 

I have a few classes to handle templating, caching, and database handling.

How could I do it without making a whole entire class?

[rhodesa]

then i would turn each element into an associate array to accomplish the same idea. So your array would turn into something like this:

$usable => Array (3)
(
    ['8'] = Array ( ) 
    (
        ['type'] = String(4) "news"
        ['color'] = String(3) "red"
        ['title'] = String(18) "Something Happened"
    )
    ['17'] = Array ( ) 
    (
        ['type'] = String(4) "post"
        ['color'] = String(4) "blue"
        ['title'] = String(13) "Some New Post"
    )
    ['13'] = Array ( ) 
    (
        ['type'] = String(4) "news"
        ['color'] = String(3) "red"
        ['title'] = String(23) "Something Else Happened"
    )
)