Move an array element to a new index in PHP

Question

I\'m looking for a simple function to move an array element to a new position in the array and resequence the indexes so that there are no gaps in the sequence. It doesnt ne

Answer 1

Take a look at this thread which describes a similar problem. The following solution is provided:

/**
 * Move array element by index.  Only works with zero-based,
 * contiguously-indexed arrays
 *
 * @param array $array
 * @param integer $from Use NULL when you want to move the last element
 * @param integer $to   New index for moved element. Use NULL to push
 * 
 * @throws Exception
 * 
 * @return array Newly re-ordered array
 */
function moveValueByIndex( array $array, $from=null, $to=null )
{
  if ( null === $from )
  {
    $from = count( $array ) - 1;
  }

  if ( !isset( $array[$from] ) )
  {
    throw new Exception( "Offset $from does not exist" );
  }

  if ( array_keys( $array ) != range( 0, count( $array ) - 1 ) )
  {
    throw new Exception( "Invalid array keys" );
  }

  $value = $array[$from];
  unset( $array[$from] );

  if ( null === $to )
  {
    array_push( $array, $value );
  } else {
    $tail = array_splice( $array, $to );
    array_push( $array, $value );
    $array = array_merge( $array, $tail );
  }

  return $array;
}

Answer 2

The solution from hakre with two array_splice commands doesn't work with named arrays. The key of the moved element will be lost.

Instead you can splice the array two times and merge the parts.

function moveElement(&$array, $a, $b) {
    $p1 = array_splice($array, $a, 1);
    $p2 = array_splice($array, 0, $b);
    $array = array_merge($p2,$p1,$array);
}

How does it work:

• First: remove/splice the element from the array
• Second: splice the array into two parts at the position you want to insert the element
• Merge the three parts together

Example:

$fruits = array(
    'bananas'=>'12', 
    'apples'=>'23',
    'tomatoes'=>'21', 
    'nuts'=>'22',
    'foo'=>'a',
    'bar'=>'b'
);

moveElement($fruits, 1, 3);

// Result
['bananas'=>'12', 'tomatoes'=>'21', 'nuts'=>'22', 'apples'=>'23', 'foo'=>'a', 'bar'=>'b']

Answer 3

May be I'm wrong but shouldn't it be easier just to make a copy of the array and then replace the values?

function swap($input, $a, $b){
  $output = $input;
  $output[$a] = $input[$b];
  $output[$b] = $input[$a];
  return $output;
}

$array = ['a', 'c', 'b'];
$array = swap($array, 1, 2);

Answer 4

As commented, 2x array_splice, there even is no need to renumber:

$array = [
    0 => 'a', 
    1 => 'c', 
    2 => 'd', 
    3 => 'b', 
    4 => 'e',
];

function moveElement(&$array, $a, $b) {
    $out = array_splice($array, $a, 1);
    array_splice($array, $b, 0, $out);
}

moveElement($array, 3, 1);

Result:

[
    0 => 'a',
    1 => 'b',
    2 => 'c',
    3 => 'd',
    4 => 'e',
];

Answer 5

A function that preserves keys:

function moveElementInArray($array, $toMove, $targetIndex) {
    if (is_int($toMove)) {
        $tmp = array_splice($array, $toMove, 1);
        array_splice($array, $targetIndex, 0, $tmp);
        $output = $array;
    }
    elseif (is_string($toMove)) {
        $indexToMove = array_search($toMove, array_keys($array));
        $itemToMove = $array[$toMove];
        array_splice($array, $indexToMove, 1);
        $i = 0;
        $output = Array();
        foreach($array as $key => $item) {
            if ($i == $targetIndex) {
                $output[$toMove] = $itemToMove;
            }
            $output[$key] = $item;
            $i++;
        }
    }
    return $output;
}

$arr1 = Array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e');
$arr2 = Array('A' => 'a', 'B' => 'b', 'C' => 'c', 'D' => 'd', 'E' => 'e');

print_r(moveElementInArray($arr1, 3, 1));
print_r(moveElementInArray($arr2, 'D', 1));

Ouput:

Array
(
    [0] => a
    [1] => d
    [2] => b
    [3] => c
    [4] => e
)
Array
(
    [A] => a
    [D] => d
    [B] => b
    [C] => c
    [E] => e
)

Answer 6

A lot of good answers. Here's a simple one built on the answer by @RubbelDeCatc. The beauty of it is that you only need to know the array key, not its current position (before repositioning).

/**
 * Reposition an array element by its key.
 *
 * @param array      $array The array being reordered.
 * @param string|int $key They key of the element you want to reposition.
 * @param int        $order The position in the array you want to move the element to. (0 is first)
 *
 * @throws \Exception
 */
function repositionArrayElement(array &$array, $key, int $order): void
{
    if(($a = array_search($key, array_keys($array))) === false){
        throw new \Exception("The {$key} cannot be found in the given array.");
    }
    $p1 = array_splice($array, $a, 1);
    $p2 = array_splice($array, 0, $order);
    $array = array_merge($p2, $p1, $array);
}

Straight forward to use:

$fruits = [
    'bananas'=>'12', 
    'apples'=>'23',
    'tomatoes'=>'21', 
    'nuts'=>'22',
    'foo'=>'a',
    'bar'=>'b'
];

repositionArrayElement($fruits, "foo", 1);

var_export($fruits);

/** Returns
array (
  'bananas' => '12',
  'foo' => 'a', <--  Now moved to position #1
  'apples' => '23',
  'tomatoes' => '21',
  'nuts' => '22',
  'bar' => 'b',
)
**/

Works on numeric arrays also:

$colours = ["green", "blue", "red"];

repositionArrayElement($colours, 2, 0);

var_export($colours);

/** Returns
array (
  0 => 'red', <-- Now moved to position #0
  1 => 'green',
  2 => 'blue',
)
*/

Demo