Is this the correct PHP Syntax for adding an associative array to an existing associative array.

Question

I have three variables retrieved from a database and I would like the first variable to be the key for the second variable and for that second variable to be the key for the third variable. In essence a two-dimensional array.

 while($row = $statement->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC))
    {
         $unit_id = $row['id'];
          $unit_code = $row['unit_name'];
           $unit_description = $row['unit_description'];

         $units = [$unit_id => $unit_code];
         $units += [$unit_code => $unit_description];

    }
    return $units;

Possible duplicate of [Adding an item to an associative array](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5384847/adding-an-item-to-an-associative-array) — Ian Fako, Oct 16 '17 at 12:55
Did u mean `$units[$unit_id][$unit_code] = $unit_description;` ? — GONG, Oct 16 '17 at 12:57

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 16 '17 at 12:54

1

Yess you can do this.

$array = [
 'data' => 'my data'
];

now you can do this simply

$array['anotherArray'] = $anotherArray;

answered Oct 16 '17 at 12:54

FULL STACK DEV

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 16 '17 at 12:56

If "id", "unit_name" and "unit_description" are respectively the first, second and third value of the database, this is the code:

while($row = $statement->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC))
{
    $units[$row['id']][$row['unit_name']] = $row['unit_description'];


}
return $units;

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 16 '17 at 12:56

You can simply make like this

<?php
    $unit_id = 'id';
    $unit_code = 'unit_name';
    $unit_description = 'unit_description';

    $units[$unit_id] = [$unit_code=>$unit_description];
    //$units[$unit_id][$unit_code] = $unit_description;
    print_r($units);
?>

Live demo : https://eval.in/880865

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 16 '17 at 12:55

If array consists of key, value parts (associative arrays), which your case is like that, you just need to:

$data[$key] = $value;

So in your case it would be:

$units[$unit_code] = $unit_description;

If your arrays' keys are indexed, then using array_push can do the job too:

array_push($units, $unit_description);

Is this the correct PHP Syntax for adding an associative array to an existing associative array.

4 Answers4