How to add an array value to the middle of an associative array?

Question

Lets say I have this array:

$array = array(\'a\'=>1,\'z\'=>2,\'d\'=>4);

Later in the script, I want to add the value \'c\'=>3<

Answer 1

For the moment the best i can found to try to minimize the creation of new arrays are these two functions :

the first one try to replace value into the original array and the second one return a new array.

// replace value into the original array
function insert_key_before_inplace(&$base, $beforeKey, $newKey, $value) {
 $index = 0;
 foreach($base as $key => $val) {
    if ($key==$beforeKey) break;
    $index++;
 }
 $end = array_splice($base, $index, count($base)-$index);
 $base[$newKey] = $value;
 foreach($end as $key => $val) $base[$key] = $val;
}


$array = array('a'=>1,'z'=>2,'d'=>4);

insert_key_before_inplace($array, 'z', 'c', 3);

var_export($array); // array ( 'a' => 1, 'c' => 3, 'z' => 2, 'd' => 4, )

---

// create new array
function insert_key_before($base, $beforeKey, $newKey, $value) {
 $index = 0;
 foreach($base as $key => $val) {
    if ($key==$beforeKey) break;
    $index++;
 }
 $end = array_splice($base, $index, count($base)-$index);
 $base[$newKey] = $value;
 return $base+$end;
}


$array = array('a'=>1,'z'=>2,'d'=>4);

$newArray=insert_key_before($array, 'z', 'c', 3);

var_export($array); // ( 'a' => 1, 'z' => 2, 'd' => 4, )

var_export($newArray); // array ( 'a' => 1, 'c' => 3, 'z' => 2, 'd' => 4, )