Change array key without changing order

Question

You can "change" the key of an array element simply by setting the new key and removing the old:

$array[$newKey] = $array[$oldKey]; unset($array[$oldKey]); 

But this will move the key to the end of the array.

Is there some elegant way to change the key without changing the order?

(PS: This question is just out of conceptual interest, not because I need it anywhere.)

Answer 1

Tested and works :)

function replace_key($array, $old_key, $new_key) {     $keys = array_keys($array);     if (false === $index = array_search($old_key, $keys, true)) {         throw new Exception(sprintf('Key "%s" does not exist', $old_key));     }     $keys[$index] = $new_key;     return array_combine($keys, array_values($array)); }  $array = [ 'a' => '1', 'b' => '2', 'c' => '3' ];     $new_array = replace_key($array, 'b', 'e'); 

Answer 2

Something like this may also work:

$langs = array("EN" => "English",          "ZH" => "Chinese",          "DA" => "Danish",         "NL" => "Dutch",          "FI" => "Finnish",          "FR" => "French",         "DE" => "German"); $json = str_replace('"EN":', '"en":', json_encode($langs)); print_r(json_decode($json, true)); 

OUTPUT:

Array (     [en] => English     [ZH] => Chinese     [DA] => Danish     [NL] => Dutch     [FI] => Finnish     [FR] => French     [DE] => German )