How can PHP code be optimized to efficiently organize dropdown list entries by letter?

To efficiently organize dropdown list entries by letter in PHP, you can use an associative array to group the entries by their first letter. This allows for quick access to entries starting with a specific letter without having to iterate through the entire list each time. 

// Sample dropdown list entries
$entries = ['Apple', 'Banana', 'Orange', 'Grape', 'Kiwi', 'Lemon', 'Mango'];

// Initialize an empty associative array to store entries by letter
$organizedEntries = [];

// Group entries by their first letter
foreach ($entries as $entry) {
    $firstLetter = strtoupper(substr($entry, 0, 1));
    $organizedEntries[$firstLetter][] = $entry;
}

// Sort the entries within each letter group
foreach ($organizedEntries as $letter => $group) {
    sort($organizedEntries[$letter]);
}

// Output the organized entries
foreach ($organizedEntries as $letter => $group) {
    echo "<optgroup label='$letter'>";
    foreach ($group as $entry) {
        echo "<option value='$entry'>$entry</option>";
    }
    echo "</optgroup>";
}

Keywords

PHP optimization dropdown list sorting efficiency

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