How to update specific key's value in an associative array in PHP?

Question

I've a following associative array named $data

Array (     [0] => Array         (             [transaction_user_id] => 359691e27b23f8ef3f8e1c50315cd506             [transaction_no] => 19500912050218             [transaction_total_amount] => 589.00             [transaction_date] => 1335932419             [transaction_status] => cancelled         )      [1] => Array         (             [transaction_user_id] => 9def02e6337b888d6dbe5617a172c18d             [transaction_no] => 36010512050819             [transaction_total_amount] => 79.00             [transaction_date] => 1336476696             [transaction_status] => cancelled         )      [2] => Array         (             [transaction_user_id] => 9def02e6337b888d6dbe5617a172c18d             [transaction_no] => 19020512050820             [transaction_total_amount] => 299.00             [transaction_date] => 1336476739             [transaction_status] => cancelled         )      [3] => Array         (             [transaction_user_id] => 9def02e6337b888d6dbe5617a172c18d             [transaction_no] => 27050512050821             [transaction_total_amount] => 79.00             [transaction_date] => 1336476927             [transaction_status] => cancelled         )      [4] => Array         (             [transaction_user_id] => 8e9050a3646c98342b9ba079fba80982             [transaction_no] => 12070512050822             [transaction_total_amount] => 129.00             [transaction_date] => 1336477032             [transaction_status] => cancelled         )  ) 

and I want to convert the value of key [transaction_date] into user readable format (i.e. mm/dd/yyyy). For that I written the following code in a function which returns the whole array:

 foreach($data as $value)  {     $value[transaction_date]=date('d/m/Y',$value[transaction_date]);  }       return $data; 

My problem is I'm getting the same array without changing the value of [transaction_date] for all the array elements. Actually array with updated values for [transaction_date] is expected to be returned. Can anyone help me out to resolve this issue? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Change your foreach to something like this, You are not assigning data back to your return variable $data after performing operation on that.

foreach($data as $key => $value) {   $data[$key]['transaction_date'] = date('d/m/Y',$value['transaction_date']); } 

Codepad DEMO.

Answer 2

This will work too!

foreach($data as &$value) {   $value['transaction_date'] = date('d/m/Y', $value['transaction_date']); } 

Yay for alternatives!