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advanced patterns when using PHP 8.1's array_filter with a callback function returning null

👀 Views: 269 đŸ’Ŧ Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-05
php array_filter callback PHP

I need some guidance on After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. I'm prototyping a solution and I've looked through the documentation and I'm still confused about I've been banging my head against this for hours. I'm working with an scenario with PHP 8.1 when using `array_filter` to remove falsy values from an array. I have a callback function that processes each element, but it seems like the function returning `null` is not behaving as I expected. Instead of filtering out the falsy values, it's leaving some unexpected items in the array. Here's the code I have: ```php $data = [1, 2, 0, 3, null, 4, false, 5, '']; $filteredData = array_filter($data, function($value) { if ($value === null) { return null; } return $value > 0; }); print_r($filteredData); ``` I anticipated that the `array_filter` function would remove the `0`, `null`, and `false` values, leaving me only with `[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]`. However, the output I'm seeing is: ``` Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => 2 [3] => 3 [5] => 4 [7] => 5 ) ``` As per the [PHP documentation](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.array-filter.php), it seems like the callback should return `true` or `false` for filtering to work correctly. Returning `null` should be equivalent to returning `false`, but it looks like that's not always the case here. I tried changing the callback to explicitly handle different types, but the output remains the same. How can I modify my code so that it correctly filters out falsy values, including `null` and `0`? Any insights or best practices on how to approach this would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger web app I'm building. Is there a better approach? For context: I'm using Php on Linux. Has anyone else encountered this? Is there a better approach? I've been using Php for about a year now. Thanks, I really appreciate it! For context: I'm using Php on Linux. Has anyone else encountered this?