Better way to get first element of returned array

Question

Question by TecBrat

I found myself using this:

$var=(string)array_shift(array_values($item->xpath($s)));

where $s is an xpath search string and the return is an array of objects that contain strings.

It works, but I’m not sure it’s the best way to get the data I want.

I could use a tempvar, but I wanted to avoid that.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Careful with array_shift, as it will remove the element from the array stack, if you simply want the first value, you can use current:

$var = (string) current($item->xpath($s));

Answer 2

I believe this gives the same result.

$var=array_shift($item->xpath($s));