PHP Array Chunk

Introduction

Sometimes you have to deal with a very large array of data. It would be much better to split the array in different chunks and work on each chunk one at a time.

For example if you have an array with 1000 elements you can split it in arrays of 10 or 100.

Array chunk is going to help you do exactly that.

Array Chunk

array_chunk($array,$length,$preserveKeys)

It takes 3 arguments

array is the original array

Length is the length of each chunk

PreserveKey is false by default. It reindexes your array with numerical values. But if you have an associative array and you want to keep the keys as is, make sure to set this to true

Let’s see an example

I have an array of 5 people (it’s not big I know but imagine it’s 500) and I want to split it into arrays with length of 2. And I want my keys to stay the same. So let’s see the code

$people = [
   'php'      => 'amir',
   'feedhive' => 'simon',
   'twitter'  => 'pratham',
   'docker'   => 'francesco',
   'web3'     => 'oliver'
];
$chunks = array_chunk($people,2,true);
//$chunks = array_chunk($people,2,true);
// Array (
// [0] => Array (
//      [php]       => amir
//      [feedhive]  => simon
//      )
// [1] => Array (
//      [twitter]   => pratham
//      [docker]    => francesco
//      )
// [2] => Array (
//      [web3]      => oliver
//      )
// )

As you can see it has returned an array of arrays. Each array is in length 2 except the last one which is in length 1 because there were no other items.

Now you can access each array and work on them. array_chunk is a great function isn’t it?

Conclusion

Now you know about array chunck function in PHP.

I recommend you to open a PHP files and try to define an array. then try to search the values inside it and see the result.

If you have any suggestions, questions, or opinions, please contact me. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Key takeaways

• array chunk function in PHP
• split array into smaller chunks