PHP 8 cheatsheet

PHP 8: Strings and arrays

8 common PHP 8 tasks.

Search in strings

Check the start, end or contents of a string.

str_contains($text, 'error');
str_starts_with($url, 'https://');
str_ends_with($file, '.php');

Use double quotes or curly braces for expressions.

echo "Hello, {$user->name}! You have {$count} messages.";

Map and filter, then reindex the result.

$names = array_map(fn ($u) => $u['name'], $users);
$adults = array_values(array_filter($users, fn ($u) => $u['age'] >= 18));

Pull one field from each row.

$emails = array_column($users, 'email');

Sort an array by a field using the spaceship operator.

usort($users, fn ($a, $b) => $a['age'] <=> $b['age']);

Combine arrays with the spread operator.

$all = [...$first, ...$second];

Test whether a key or value exists.

array_key_exists('id', $row);
in_array('admin', $roles, true);

Convert to and from JSON, throwing exceptions on errors.

$json = json_encode($data, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR | JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
$data = json_decode($json, true, flags: JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR);