Hmm, I should probably have

greg — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 19:54:00 +0000

Hmm, I should probably have mentioned (sorry) it's a Wordpress site.
The array is built in the core (I could edit it but wont) and is for a navigation menu.

This is to show breadcrumbs for the current nav position.
The array is in the same order as long as the WP categories remain the same.

I can't really use a binary search as it's a value from a different key I want.
The array is multi dimensional. So I need to search each sub arrays to match a particular key's value but actually get another key's value if matched (same sub array though).

I already have a loop for the nav, and need to get the breadcrumbs prior to looping and showing the nav. I really don't want to loop the same array twice in succession.

Looks a parallel array as you suggested will be the best option here.
Loop to do the breadcrumbs and make a second array. I only use 3 of the values from the huge array anyway so making a second isn't too big of an issue.

I just thought there might be a way to search and match an array value and then get another key's value if matched.
Probably asking too much of the ol' PHP system.

If the array is huge, and

teammatt3 — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:51:00 +0000

If the array is huge, and your array looks like that (it has fields), why aren't you letting a relation databases handle this for you?

Is your array in any particular order? If it is, you would still need a loop, but you could use a binary search to find a name. That would bring search time down a ton.

Another idea, which would use a lot of space, would be to create a parallel array which has the names as keys, and the index (of the other array) as values.