How to insert an item at the beginning of an array in PHP?

Question

I know how to insert it to the end by:

$arr[] = $item;

But how to insert it to the beginning?

Answer 1

In case of an associative array or numbered array where you do not want to change the array keys:

$firstItem = array('foo' => 'bar');

$arr = $firstItem + $arr;

array_merge does not work as it always reindexes the array.

Answer 2

Use array_unshift() to insert the first element in an array.

User array_shift() to removes the first element of an array.

Answer 3

Or you can use temporary array and then delete the real one if you want to change it while in cycle:

$array = array(0 => 'a', 1 => 'b', 2 => 'c');
$temp_array = $array[1];

unset($array[1]);
array_unshift($array , $temp_array);

the output will be:

array(0 => 'b', 1 => 'a', 2 => 'c')

and when are doing it while in cycle, you should clean $temp_array after appending item to array.