PHP Exercises: Get the head of a given list

Last update on April 19 2025 11:50:19 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

85. Retrieve the Head of a List

Write a PHP program to get the head of a given list.

Sample Solution:

PHP Code:

<?php
// Function definition for 'head' that takes an array of items as a parameter
function head($items)
{
    // Use 'reset' to retrieve the first element of the array
    return reset($items);
}

// Call 'head' with an array and display the result using 'print_r'
print_r(head([1, 2, 3]));

// Display a newline
echo "\n";

// Call 'head' with another array and display the result using 'print_r'
print_r(head([2, 1, 3, -4, 5, 1, 2]));

?>

Explanation:

Function Definition:

The function head is defined to take a single parameter, $items, which is expected to be an array.

Retrieve First Element:

Inside the function, reset($items) is used to reset the internal pointer of the array to its first element and return that element.

Example Usage:

The function is called with the array [1, 2, 3]:

The result (first element 1) is displayed using print_r.

A newline is printed for formatting.

Second Example Usage:

The function is called again with another array [2, 1, 3, -4, 5, 1, 2]:

The result (first element 2) is displayed using print_r.

Purpose:

The head function serves to extract and return the first element of any given array, providing a simple way to access the initial value.

Output:

1
2

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

Write a PHP script to extract and display the first element of an array without modifying the array.
Write a PHP function to return the head of a list using basic index access.
Write a PHP script to output the initial element from an array while handling empty arrays gracefully.
Write a PHP script to retrieve the first value of an array using both manual indexing and built-in functions.

PHP Code Editor:

Have another way to solve this solution? Contribute your code (and comments) through Disqus.

Previous: Write a PHP program to check a flat list for duplicate values. Returns true if duplicate values exists and false if values are all unique.
Next: Write a PHP program to get the last element of a given list.