How to find first array element with value greater than X in PHP?

Question

I have array with numeric values and I want to get key of first element which has value equal or greater than 5. Is there more elegant way than looping all elements in foreach?

// "dirty" way
foreach ([0, 0, 4, 4, 5, 7] as $key => $value) {
    if ($value >= 5) {
        echo $key;
        break;
    }
}

Answer 1

The algorithm itself is perfectly fine, don't touch it.

That said, you could add some ribbons by writing a generic search function:

// find first key (from beginning of $a) for which the corresponding
// array element satisfies predicate $fn
function array_find(array $a, callable $fn)
{
    foreach ($a as $key => $value) {
        if ($fn($value, $key, $a)) {
            return $key;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

$key = array_find([0, 0, 4, 4, 5, 7], function($value) {
    return $value >= 5;
});

Now, although this is a more elegant approach, it's less efficient; there's a considerable overhead of calling the closure at each item. If performance is paramount, use what you have and run with it.