Tips.PHP: Removing empty strings, NULL, FALSE, and negative numbers from Array

Posted by Luracast on Sep 14, 2011 in Blog, PHP, Tips | 4 comments

Often we need to remove empty elements from our array. For example when we split a string with space, we can get the words and also blank strings when there are two or more spaces put together.

We can use array_filter function for rescue. When we call array_filter with out passing the filter function it removes all values that evaluate to FALSE.

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<?php
$string = "I love   Luracast Restler 2.0";
$words = explode(' ', $string);
print_r($words);
/* outputs the following
Array
(
    [0] => I
    [1] => love
    [2] =>
    [3] =>
    [4] => Luracast
    [5] => Restler
    [6] => 2.0
)
*/
$words = array_filter($words);
print_r($words);
/* outputs the following
Array
(
    [0] => I
    [1] => love
    [4] => Luracast
    [5] => Restler
    [6] => 2.0
)
*/

4 comments

  1. Luracast
    September 14, 2011

    http://blog.motane.lu/2010/06/17/remove-empty-array-elements-with-recursive-lambda-in-php-5-3/ adds few improvements to it

    Reply

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