What's the Most Efficient Way to Access the First Element of a PHP Array?

Accessing Array Elements Efficiently

When working with arrays in PHP, retrieving the first element is a common task. This operation can be performed in various ways, each with its own performance implications.

Original Option:

The original suggestion of using array_shift(array_values($array)), while straightforward, is computationally expensive due to the need to create a new copy of the array.

O(1) Solution:

A more efficient and constant-time (O(1)) approach involves reversing the array and popping the last element:

array_pop(array_reverse($array));

This operation avoids the need for a copy and directly extracts the first element.

Alternative Strategies:

If modifying the original array is acceptable, reset($array) can be used to set the internal array pointer to the first element.

For cases requiring an array copy, consider array_shift(array_slice($array, 0, 1)).

In PHP 5.4 , the compact array_values($array)[0] syntax can also be employed, but it may raise an error for empty arrays.

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