Limit of items in the "foreach"

It has some form:

Do not use foreach , use for :

$images = glob($dirname."*.{jpg,jpeg,png,gif,JPG,PNG,JPEG,GIF}",GLOB_BRACE);
for ($i = 0; count($images); $i++) {
    echo '
<a href="'.$images[i].'" data-at-1920="'.$images[i].'">

Create a counter and put a condition (I think inefficient and ugly):

$images = glob($dirname."*.{jpg,jpeg,png,gif,JPG,PNG,JPEG,GIF}",GLOB_BRACE);
$i = 0;
foreach($images as $image) {
    echo '
<a href="'.$image.'" data-at-1920="'.$image.'">
...
if (++$i > 4) break;

Use a condition in the array key (I find it inefficient and ugly):

$images = glob($dirname."*.{jpg,jpeg,png,gif,JPG,PNG,JPEG,GIF}",GLOB_BRACE);
foreach($images as $key => $image) {
    echo '
<a href="'.$image.'" data-at-1920="'.$image.'">
...
if ($key > 4) break;

Limit the array before entering the loop (compensates in some cases):

$images = array_slice(glob($dirname."*.{jpg,jpeg,png,gif,JPG,PNG,JPEG,GIF}",GLOB_BRACE), 4);
foreach($images as $image) {
    echo '
<a href="'.$image.'" data-at-1920="'.$image.'">

An alternative is to apply the classes DirectoryIterator and LimitIterator :

$directory = new DirectoryIterator('./data');
$firstFiveFiles = new LimitIterator($directory, 0, 5);

foreach ($firstFiveFiles as $file) {
    ...
}

But obviously the complexity of this to replace a mere if usually makes the solution unfeasible. It is also at your discretion to adapt the use of DirectoryIterator , or analog, to select only the desired files.