Get next element in foreach loop

Question

I have a foreach loop and I want to see if there is a next element in the loop so I can compare the current element with the next. How can I do this? I've read about the current and next functions but I can't figure out how to use them.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

A unique approach would be to reverse the array and then loop. This will work for non-numerically indexed arrays as well:

$items = array(     'one'   => 'two',     'two'   => 'two',     'three' => 'three' ); $backwards = array_reverse($items); $last_item = NULL;  foreach ($backwards as $current_item) {     if ($last_item === $current_item) {         // they match     }     $last_item = $current_item; } 

If you are still interested in using the current and next functions, you could do this:

$items = array('two', 'two', 'three'); $length = count($items); for($i = 0; $i < $length - 1; ++$i) {     if (current($items) === next($items)) {         // they match     } } 

#2 is probably the best solution. Note, $i < $length - 1; will stop the loop after comparing the last two items in the array. I put this in the loop to be explicit with the example. You should probably just calculate $length = count($items) - 1;

Answer 2

You could probably use while loop instead of foreach:

while ($current = current($array) ) {     $next = next($array);     if (false !== $next && $next == $current)     {         //do something with $current     } }