Arrays And Collections: Varray And Darray

varray, darray and varray_or_darray are legacy value types for storing iterable data.. They are also called 'PHP arrays' and will eventually be removed.

PHP arrays are immutable value types, just like Hack arrays. Unlike Hack arrays, they include legacy behaviors from PHP that can hide bugs.

For example, in HHVM 4.36, invalid array keys are accepted and silently coerced to an arraykey.

$x = dict[false => 123];
var_dump(array_keys($x)[0]);
// int(0), not `bool(false)`

varray

Use Hack Arrays

As of HHVM 4.103, varray is aliased to vec. Use vec.

Working with varrays

A varray is an ordered, iterable data structure.

// Creating a varray.
function get_items(): varray<string> {
  $items = vec['a', 'b', 'c'];
  return $items;
}

// Accessing items by index.
$items[0]; // 'a'
$items[3]; // throws OutOfBoundsException

// Accessing items that might be out-of-bounds.
idx($items, 0); // 'a'
idx($items, 3); // null
idx($items, 3, 'default'); // 'default'

// Modifying items. These operations set $items
// to a modified copy, and do not modify the original value.
$items[0] = 'xx'; // vec['xx', 'b', 'c']
$items[] = 'd'; // vec['xx', 'b', 'c', 'd']

// Getting the length.
C\count($items); // 4

// Iterating.
foreach ($items as $item) {
  echo $item;
}
// Iterating with the index.
foreach ($items as $index => $item) {
  echo $index; // e.g. 0
  echo $item;  // e.g. 'a'
}

// Equality checks.
vec[1] === vec[1]; // true
vec[1, 2] === vec[2, 1]; // false

// Converting from an Iterable.
varray(vec[10, 11]); // vec[10, 11]
varray(keyset[10, 11]); // vec[10, 11]

darray

Use Hack Arrays

As of HHVM 4.103, darray is aliased to dict. Use dict.

Working with darrays

A darray is an ordered key-value data structure.

// Creating a darray.
function get_items(): darray<string, int> {
  $items = dict['a' => 1, 'b' => 3];
  return $items;
}

// Accessing items by key.
$items['a']; // 1
$items['foo']; // throws OutOfBoundsException

// Accessing keys that may be absent.
idx($items, 'a'); // 1
idx($items, 'z'); // null
idx($items, 'z', 'default'); // 'default'

// Inserting, updating or removing values in a darray. These operations
// set $items to a modified copy, and do not modify the original value.
$items['a'] = 42; // dict['a' => 42, 'b' => 3]
$items['z'] = 100; // dict['a' => 42, 'b' => 3, 'z' => 100]
unset($items['b']); // dict['a' => 42, 'z' => 100]

// Getting the keys.
Vec\keys(dict['a' => 1, 'b' => 3]); // vec['a', 'b']

// Getting the values.
vec(dict['a' => 1, 'b' => 3]); // vec[1, 3]

// Getting the length.
C\count($items); // 2

// Checking if a dict contains a key or value.
C\contains_key($items, 'a'); // true
C\contains($items, 3); // true

// Iterating values.
foreach ($items as $value) {
  echo $value; // e.g. 1
}
// Iterating keys and values.
foreach ($items as $key => $Value) {
  echo $key;   // e.g. 'a'
  echo $value; // e.g. 1
}

// Equality checks. === returns false if the order does not match.
dict[] === dict[]; // true
dict[0 => 10, 1 => 11] === dict[1 => 11, 0 => 10]; // false

// Converting from an Iterable.
darray(vec['a', 'b']); // dict[0 => 'a', 1 => 'b']
darray(Map {'a' => 5}); // dict['a' => 5]

varray_or_darray

A varray_or_darray is type that can be either a varray or darray. It exists to help gradually migrate code to more specific types, and should be avoided when possible.

function get_items(bool $b): varray_or_darray<int, string> {
  if ($b) {
    return vec['a', 'b'];
  } else {
    return dict[5 => 'c'];
  }
}

Runtime options

In HHVM version 4.62 and earlier, by default, varray and darray are interchangeable at runtime; this can be changed, as can some legacy PHP array behaviors, depending on the HHVM version.

The available runtime options change frequently; to get an up-to-date list, search ini_get_all() for settings beginning with hhvm.hack_arr; in general:

  • a value of 0 means no logging
  • 1 means a warning or notice is raised
  • 2 means a recoverable error is raised

The hhvm.hack_arr_compat_notices option must be set to true for any of the hhvm.hack_arr_ options to have an effect.

Individual runtime settings are documented here.

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