The foreach Loop in PHP

The foreach loop is used to iterate through all elements of an array.

Let an array be given. Let's output all its elements to the screen as an example:

<?php
	$arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
	foreach ($arr as $elem) {
		echo $elem;
	}
?>

Code execution result:

12345

The syntax is as follows: the name of the array being iterated, then the keyword as, then the name of the variable into which the array elements will be sequentially placed. In our case, its name is $elem, but we can give it any name.

The foreach Loop and an Associative Array

This loop can also be used to iterate through the elements of an associative array in PHP:

<?php
	$arr = ['a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3, 'd' => 4, 'e' => 5];
	foreach ($arr as $key => $elem) {
		echo $key . '-' . $elem; // will output: 'a-1', 'b-2', 'c-3' and so on...
	}
?>

In this case, the keys of our array will be placed into the variable $key, and the value into $elem. The variable does not necessarily have to be named $key, the name can be any.

The foreach Loop in PHP

The foreach Loop and an Associative Array

See Also