New Array Functions in PHP 8.4

Introduction

PHP 8.4 is set to be released in November 2024 and will introduce some handy new array functions:

• array_find
• array_find_key
• array_any
• array_all

In this article, we're going to take a quick look at these new functions and how you'll be able to use them in your projects running PHP 8.4.

If you're a Laravel developer, you might notice that we already have similar functions in the Illuminate\Support\Collection and Illuminate\Support\Arr classes. But I love that these functions will be native to PHP and so will be available in any PHP project.

For any of my readers who are Laravel developers, I'll show you the Laravel equivalents of these new functions so that you can achieve the same functionality in your Laravel projects without having to wait for PHP 8.4.

You might also be interested in checking out my other article that talks all about PHP 8.4's new "property hooks" feature.

The array_find function

The array_find function returns the value of the first element that matches the criteria defined in the callback. If no element matches the callback, the function returns null.

Let's take a look at a simple example. We'll imagine we have an array of products and that we want to find the product with a barcode of 123456:

        
 1$products = [
 2    [
 3        'name' => 'Macbook Pro',
 4        'type' => 'Laptop',
 5        'barcode' => 123456,
 6    ],
 7    [
 8        'name' => 'Framework Laptop 13',
 9        'type' => 'Laptop',
10        'barcode' => 789012,
11    ],
12    [
13        'name' => 'Samsung Galaxy S24',
14        'type' => 'Phone',
15        'barcode' => 135791,
16    ],
17];
18 
19// Find the product with barcode 123456
20$findProduct = array_find(
21    array: $products,
22    callback: function (array $product): bool {
23        return $product['barcode'] == 123456;
24    },
25);    

After running the code above, $findProduct will be equal to:

        
1[
2    'name'=> 'Macbook Pro',
3    'type' => 'Laptop',
4    'barcode' => 123456,
5]    

We could clean this up a little further by using an arrow function as the second argument:

        
1$findProduct = array_find(
2    array: $products,
3    callback: fn (array $product): bool => $product['barcode'] === 123456,
4);    

The above code will return the same result as the previous example.

If no element matches the callback, the function will return null. Let's see an example of this:

        
1$nonExistentProduct = array_find(
2    array: $products,
3    callback: fn (array $product): bool => $product['barcode'] === 'invalid',
4);    

In this case, $nonExistentProduct will be equal to null.

Laravel Equivalent

In Laravel, you can achieve a similar result using the Arr::first method:

        
1use Illuminate\Support\Arr;
2 
3$findProduct = Arr::first(
4    $products,
5    fn (array $product): bool => $product['barcode'] === 123456,
6);    

The array_find_key function

This function is similar to the array_find function, but instead of returning the value of the first element that matches the callback, it returns the key of the first element that matches the callback.

Let's take our $products example array from earlier. This time, we want to find the key of the product with a barcode of 789012:

        
 1$products = [
 2    [
 3        'name' => 'Macbook Pro',
 4        'type' => 'Laptop',
 5        'barcode' => 123456,
 6    ],
 7    [
 8        'name' => 'Framework Laptop 13',
 9        'type' => 'Laptop',
10        'barcode' => 789012,
11    ],
12    [
13        'name' => 'Samsung Galaxy S24',
14        'type' => 'Phone',
15        'barcode' => 135791,
16    ],
17];
18 
19// Find the key of the product with barcode 789012
20$findProduct = array_find_key(
21    array: $products,
22    callback: fn (array $product): bool => $product['barcode'] === 789012,
23);    

After running the code above, $findProduct will be equal to 1 because the product is the second element in the array.

If no element matches the callback, the function will return null. Let's see an example of this:

        
1$nonExistentProduct = array_find_key(
2    array: $products,
3    callback: fn (array $product): bool => $product['barcode'] === 'invalid',
4);    

In this case, $nonExistentProduct will be equal to null.

Laravel Equivalent

In Laravel, you can achieve a similar result using a combination of the array_keys and Arr::first methods:

        
1use Illuminate\Support\Arr;
2 
3$firstProductKey = Arr::first(
4    array_keys($products),
5    fn (int $key): bool => $products[$key]['barcode'] === 789012,
6);    

In the code above, we're first using array_keys to get an array of the keys of the $products array. We then use Arr::first to find the first key that matches the callback. This is a little more verbose than the native PHP function, but it achieves the same result.

The array_any function

The array_any function allows you to check that at least one element in the array matches the criteria defined in the callback. If any element matches the callback, the function returns true. If no element matches the callback, the function returns false.

Sticking with our $products example array, let's check if any of the products have a type of Laptop:

        
1$anyProductsAreLaptops = array_any(
2    array: $products,
3    callback: fn (array $product): bool => $product['type'] === 'Laptop',
4);    

In this case, $anyProductsAreLaptops will be equal to true because at least one of the products in the array is a laptop.

If no element matches the callback, the function will return false. Let's see an example of this:

        
1$anyProductsAreInvalid = array_any(
2    array: $products,
3    callback: fn (array $product): bool => $product['type'] === 'Invalid',
4);    

In this case, $anyProductsAreInvalid will be equal to false.

Laravel Equivalent

We can achieve the same result in Laravel using the contains method on a collection:

        
1use Illuminate\Support\Collection;
2 
3$anyProductsAreLaptops = Collection::make($products)->contains(
4    fn (array $product): bool => $product['type'] === 'Laptop',
5);    

In the code above, we're creating a collection from the $products array and then using the contains method to check if any of the products in the collection are laptops.

The array_all function

The array_all function is similar to the array_any function, but instead of checking if at least one element matches the callback, it checks if all elements match the callback. If all elements match the callback, the function returns true. If any element does not match the callback, the function returns false.

Let's check if all of the products in our $products array are laptops:

        
1$allProductsAreLaptops = array_all(
2    array: $products,
3    callback: fn (array $product): bool => $product['type'] === 'Laptop',
4);    

In this case, $allProductsAreLaptops will be equal to false because not all of the products in the array are laptops.

Laravel Equivalent

In Laravel, we can achieve the same result using the every method on a collection:

        
1use Illuminate\Support\Collection;
2 
3$allProductsAreLaptops = Collection::make($products)->every(
4    fn (array $product): bool => $product['type'] === 'Laptop',
5);    

In the code above, we're creating a collection from the $products array and then using the every method to check if all the products in the collection are laptops.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has shown you how you can use the new array functions that will be available in PHP 8.4. It should have also given you an idea of how you can achieve similar functionality in Laravel using the Illuminate\Support\Collection and Illuminate\Support\Arr classes.

If you enjoyed reading this post, you might be interested in checking out my 220+ page ebook "Battle Ready Laravel" which covers similar topics in more depth.

Or, you might want to check out my other 440+ page ebook "Consuming APIs in Laravel" which teaches you how to use Laravel to consume APIs from other services.

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