What is the best way to access unknown array elements without generating PHP notice?

Question

If I have this array,

ini_set(\'display_errors\', true);
error_reporting(E_ALL);

$arr = array(
  \'id\' => 1234,
  \'name\' => \'Jack\',
  \'email\' =         


        

Answer 1

I borrowed the code below from Kohana. It will return the element of multidimensional array or NULL (or any default value chosen) if the key doesn't exist.

function _arr($arr, $path, $default = NULL) 
{
  if (!is_array($arr))
    return $default;

  $cursor = $arr;
  $keys = explode('.', $path);

  foreach ($keys as $key) {
    if (isset($cursor[$key])) {
      $cursor = $cursor[$key];
    } else {
      return $default;
    }
  }

  return $cursor;
}

Given the input array above, access its elements with:

echo _arr($arr, 'id');                    // 1234
echo _arr($arr, 'city.country.name');     // USA
echo _arr($arr, 'city.name');             // Los Angeles
echo _arr($arr, 'city.zip', 'not set');   // not set

Answer 2

The @ error control operator suppresses any errors generated by an expression, including invalid array keys.

$name = @$arr['city']['country']['name'];