Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

PHP PHP Arrays and Control Structures PHP Arrays Multidimensional Arrays

Hannah Schauer
Hannah Schauer
1,137 Points
Posted by Hannah Schauer
Hannah Schauer
1,137 Points

Multidimensional Arrays

I'm supposed to replace the hard code values with the arrays I created, which have now been erased. But the echo function is not working and every time I try to preview to see what's wrong it says I have a syntax error. It also says that I've changed the output so I either screwed something up real bad or I'm missing something. Please help.

index.php 
<?php
//edit this array
$contacts[] = array(
  'name' => 'Alena Holligan' ,
  'email' => 'alena.holligan@teamtreehouse.com' 
  );
$contacts[] = array(
  'name' => 'Dave McFarland' , 
  'email' => 'dave.mcfarland@teamtreehouse.com'
  );
$contacts[] = array(
  'name' => 'Treasure Porth' , 
  'email' => 'treasure.porth@teamtreehouse.com' 
  );
$contacts[] = array(
  'name' =>  'Andrew Chalkley' , 
  'email' => 'andrew.chalkley@teamtreehouse.com'
  );

echo "<ul>\n";
//$contacts[0] will return 'Alena Holligan' in our simple array of names.
echo "<li>$contacts[0]['name'] : $contacts[0]['email']</li>\n";

echo "<li>$contacts[1]['name'] : $contacts[1]['email']</li>\n";

echo "<li>$contacts[2]['name'] : $contacts[2]['email']</li>\n";

echo "<li>$contacts[3]['name'] : $contacts[3]['email']</li>\n";

echo "</ul>\n";

1 Answer

Benjamin Larson
Benjamin Larson
34,055 Points
Benjamin Larson
Benjamin Larson
34,055 Points

You're close, but the values of the array elements (such as $contacts[0]['name']) are not simple strings and PHP throws a notice that it can't convert an array to a string. You can either concatenate the strings like this:

<?php
echo "<li>" . $contacts[0]['name'] . " : " . $contacts[0]['email'] . "</li>\n";

or enclose the array elements in curly braces:

<?php
echo "<li>{$contacts[0]['name']} : {$contacts[0]['email']}</li>\n";

PHP calls this Complex (curly) syntax.