Deleting an element from an array in PHP

Question

Is there an easy way to delete an element from an array using PHP, such that foreach ($array) no longer includes that element?

I thought that setting it to null would do it, but apparently it does not work.

Answer 1

There are different ways to delete an array element, where some are more useful for some specific tasks than others.

Deleting a Single Array Element

If you want to delete just one single array element you can use unset() and alternatively array_splice().

By key or by value?

If you know the value and don't know the key to delete the element you can use array_search() to get the key. This only works if the element doesn't occur more than once, since array_search() returns the first hit only.

unset() Expression

Note: When you use unset() the array keys won’t change. If you want to reindex the keys you can use array_values() after unset(), which will convert all keys to numerically enumerated keys starting from 0 (the array remains a list).

Example Code:

$array = [0 => "a", 1 => "b", 2 => "c"];
unset($array[1]);
          // ↑ Key of element to delete

Example Output:

[
    [0] => a
    [2] => c
]

array_splice() Function

If you use array_splice() the (integer) keys will automatically be reindex-ed, but the associative (string) keys won't change — as opposed to array_values() after unset(), which will convert all keys to numerical keys.

Note: array_splice() needs the offset, not the key, as the second parameter; offset = array_flip(array_keys(array))[key].

Example Code:

$array = [0 => "a", 1 => "b", 2 => "c"];
array_splice($array, 1, 1);
                  // ↑ Offset of element to delete

Example Output:

[
    [0] => a
    [1] => c
]

array_splice(), same as unset(), take the array by reference. You don’t assign the return values back to the array.

Deleting Multiple Array Elements

If you want to delete multiple array elements and don’t want to call unset() or array_splice() multiple times you can use the functions array_diff() or array_diff_key() depending on whether you know the values or the keys of the elements to remove from the array.

array_diff() Function

If you know the values of the array elements which you want to delete, then you can use array_diff(). As before with unset() it won’t change the keys of the array.

Example Code:

$array = [0 => "a", 1 => "b", 2 => "c", 3 => "c"];
$array = array_diff($array, ["a", "c"]);
                         // └────────┘
                         // Array values to delete

Example Output:

[
    [1] => b
]

array_diff_key() Function

If you know the keys of the elements which you want to delete, then you want to use array_diff_key(). You have to make sure you pass the keys as keys in the second parameter and not as values. Keys won’t reindex.

Example Code:

$array = [0 => "a", 1 => "b", 2 => "c"];
$array = array_diff_key($array, [0 => "xy", "2" => "xy"]);
                              // ↑           ↑
                              // Array keys of elements to delete

Example Output:

[
    [1] => b
]

If you want to use unset() or array_splice() to delete multiple elements with the same value you can use array_keys() to get all the keys for a specific value and then delete all elements.

array_filter() Function

If you want to delete all elements with a specific value in the array you can use array_filter().

Example Code:

$array = [0 => "a", 1 => "b", 2 => "c"];
$array = array_filter($array, static function ($element) {
    return $element !== "b";
    //                   ↑
    // Array value which you want to delete
});

Example Output:

[
    [0] => a
    [2] => c
]