FAQ: Ordered Arrays - Nested Arrays

This community-built FAQ covers the “Nested Arrays” exercise from the lesson “Ordered Arrays”.

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FAQs on the exercise Nested Arrays

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Why does the terminal returns “GOLD!1”?

<?php
namespace Codecademy;


$treasure_hunt = ["garbage", "cat", 99, ["soda can", 8, ":)", "sludge", ["stuff", "lint", ["GOLD!"], "cave", "bat", "scorpion"], "rock"], "glitter", "moonlight", 2.11];
  
// Write your code below:

echo print_r($treasure_hunt[3][4][2][0]);
                  

The reason it is printing the 1 at the end is because of how print_r works.

What print_r does is it echos the value and returns whether that value exists or not. When something is true, it is evaluated to 1, and when something is false, it evaluates to 0. So what is happening in the code above is that print_r is echoing GOLD! to the console and then you are echoing the returned value of print_r, which is 1 because that statement evaluates to true.

I hope I have explained this okay, took me a while to understand it.

write print_r($treasure_hunt[3][4][3][0]); and see that it outputs just GOLD! and not the one, that is because print_r is echoing the string, and returning the value of whether it is true or not.

1 Like

2 posts were split to a new topic: Can someone explain why and how to count nested arrays

Hello !
I don’t understand why the “GOLD!” indexes are [3] [4][2][0] ?
Thanks for your answer.

Hello . Run: print_r($treasure_hunt); . It will help you understand easier.

Hello,

I have a question regarding the task. I don’t understand why gold is set as the fourth position. Can someone please explain to me how I should proceed?"

When faced with this kind of question it is often helpful to open your text editor and paste in the array, then expand it:

$treasure_hunt = [
    "garbage",
    "cat",
    99,
    [    // [3]
        "soda can",
        8,
        ":)",
        "sludge",
        [    // [3][4]
            "stuff", 
            "lint",
            [    //  [3][4][2]
                "GOLD!"    //  [3][4][2][0]
            ],
            "cave",
            "bat",
            "scorpion"
        ],
        "rock"
    ],
    "glitter",
    "moonlight",
    2.11
];