Loop through an array of data and print an 'incrementing' letter

Question

I need to loop through an array of data and print an 'incrementing' letter for each array value. I know I can do this:

$array = array(11, 33, 44, 98, 1, 3, 2, 9, 66, 21, 45); // array to loop through
$letters = array('a', 'b', 'c', ...); // array of letters to access
$i = 0;
foreach($array as $value) {
    echo $letters[$i++] . " - $value";
}

It seems that there should be a better way than having to create an alphabet array. Any suggestions?

Note - My loop will never get through the entire alphabet, so I'm not concerned about running out of letters.

Answer 1

Use the range function:

$letters = range('a', 'z');
print_r($letters);

You can also use foreach loop to take on each letter individually:

foreach($letters as $letter) {
    echo $letter . '<br />';
}

Answer 2

$letters = range('a','z');

Answer 3

Just as a demonstration (I know you've already accepted an answer), but it's sometimes useful to know that you can also increment character variables:

$var = 'a';
do {
   echo $var++.'<br />';
} while ($var != 'aa');

Answer 4

Did you mean to have something that looked like this?

foreach(range('a','z') as $value)
{
  echo $value . ","
}