At first sight this question seems like a trivial one – “how to get the first element’s value in a PHP array?”. Most people would answer with:

  $firstElem = reset($array);
This will work for 90% of the cases, but is not a possible approach every time for the following reason:

> reset() rewinds array’s internal pointer to the first element and returns the value of the first array element. — [from the PHP documentation for reset()](http://php.net/manual/en/function.reset.php)

So forget about using current() and next() on that array if you use reset() on it.

To overcome this pitfall, we can use a different approch:

function getFirstElem(array $arr){
    return array_shift(array_values($arr))
}

$firstElem = getFirstElem($myArray);
This will make a copy of the array’s values and get the first element from that copy. Using this approach your internal pointers to _$myArray_ will not be lost.

([Image credit by “Andre Chinn”](https://flic.kr/p/5pGcyx))


Get the First Value in a Array (with and without resetting the array pointer)

Setting cookies is generally done using [setcookie()](http://php.net/manual/en/function.setcookie.php), that’s a known fact. However, unsetting them generally is a bit trickier, since the cookie remains available throughout the current request, if requested via the global variable:

`$_COOKIE['the_cookie_name']`

The cookie is fully removed/expired on the next page refresh.

The function below will avoid this behavior. It will still remove the cookie on the next page request, but it will also make it unavailable during the current request too, essentially “expiring”/”removing” it immediately.

function removeCookie($cookieName){
    unset($_COOKIE[$cookieName]);
    setcookie($cookieName, '', time() - 3600, '/');
}
To remove e.g. a cookie named “last\_username”, you would call:

removeCookie("last_username");
Image credit to [@Ginny](https://flic.kr/p/5V9Viy)


Get the First Value in a Array (with and without resetting the array pointer)

How to Unset/Remove a Cookie Immediately with PHP (Even for the Current Request, Without Having to Refresh the Page)