php array dereference in if statement expression [duplicate]

Question

Why do I need to do array indexing using curly braces inside an if statement expression? Why is the following illegal?

$birthday = "1990-01-18";
$date_birth = explode("-", $birthday);
if ($date_birth[1] != "00" && $date_birth[2] != "00") {
    $monthName = date('F', mktime(0, 0, 0, $date_birth[1], 10));
    echo "$monthName $date_birth[2]";
}

However, the following works fine:

$birthday = "1990-01-18";
$date_birth = explode("-", $birthday);
if ($date_birth{1} != "00" && $date_birth{2} != "00") {
    $monthName = date('F', mktime(0, 0, 0, $date_birth[1], 10));
    echo "$monthName $date_birth[2]";
}

Both seem to work sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/… and the first version is the "proper" one. — Matteo Tassinari
– Matteo Tassinari, Commented Apr 5, 2016 at 21:13

Matteo Tassinari · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-05 21:17:19Z

1

The two versions are exactly equivalent, as shown here.

Also, the php manual page on arrays states that:

Both square brackets and curly braces can be used interchangeably for accessing array elements (e.g. $array[42] and $array{42} will both do the same thing [...])

answered Apr 5, 2016 at 21:17

Matteo Tassinari

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