PHP Multidimensional Array Searching (Find key by specific value)
I have this multidimensional array. I need to search it and return only the key that matches the value of the "slug". I know there are other threads about searching multidimensional arrays, but I'm not really understanding enough to apply to my situation. Thanks very much for any help!
So I need a function like:
myfunction($products,'breville-one-touch-tea-maker-BTM800XL');
// returns 1
Here's the Array:
$products = array (
1 => array(
'name' => 'The Breville One-Touch Tea Maker',
'slug' => 'breville-one-touch-tea-maker-BTM800XL',
'shortname' => 'The One-Touch Tea Maker',
'listprice' => '299.99',
'price' => '249.99',
'rating' => '9.5',
'reviews' => '81',
'buyurl' => 'http://www.amazon.com/The-Breville-One-Touch-Tea-Maker/dp/B003LNOPSG',
'videoref1' => 'xNb-FOTJY1c',
'videoref2' => 'WAyk-O2B6F8',
'image' => '812BpgHhjBML.jpg',
'related1' => '2',
'related2' => '3',
'related3' => '4',
'bestbuy' => '1',
'quote' => '',
'quoteautor' => 'K. Martino',
),
2 => array(
'name' => 'Breville Variable-Temperature Kettle BKE820XL',
'slug' => 'breville-variable-temperature-kettle-BKE820XL',
'shortname' => 'Variable Temperature Kettle',
'listprice' => '199.99',
'price' => '129.99',
'rating' => '9',
'reviews' => '78',
'buyurl' => 'http://www.amazon.com/Breville-BKE820XL-Variable-Temperature-1-8-Liter-Kettle/dp/B001DYERBK',
'videoref1' => 'oyZWBD83xeE',
'image' => '41y2B8jSKmwL.jpg',
'related1' => '3',
'related2' => '4',
'related3' => '5',
'bestbuy' => '1',
'quote' => '',
'quoteautor' => '',
),
);
Solution 1:
Another poossible solution is based on the array_search() function. You need to use PHP 5.5.0 or higher.
Example
$userdb=Array
(
(0) => Array
(
(uid) => '100',
(name) => 'Sandra Shush',
(url) => 'urlof100'
),
(1) => Array
(
(uid) => '5465',
(name) => 'Stefanie Mcmohn',
(pic_square) => 'urlof100'
),
(2) => Array
(
(uid) => '40489',
(name) => 'Michael',
(pic_square) => 'urlof40489'
)
);
$key = array_search(40489, array_column($userdb, 'uid'));
echo ("The key is: ".$key);
//This will output- The key is: 2
Explanation
The function array_search() has two arguments. The first one is the value that you want to search. The second is where the function should search. The function array_column() gets the values of the elements which key is 'uid'.
Summary
So you could use it as:
array_search('breville-one-touch-tea-maker-BTM800XL', array_column($products, 'slug'));
or, if you prefer:
// define function
function array_search_multidim($array, $column, $key){
return (array_search($key, array_column($array, $column)));
}
// use it
array_search_multidim($products, 'slug', 'breville-one-touch-tea-maker-BTM800XL');
The original example(by xfoxawy) can be found on the DOCS.
The array_column() page.
Update
Due to Vael comment I was curious, so I made a simple test to meassure the performance of the method that uses array_search and the method proposed on the accepted answer.
I created an array which contained 1000 arrays, the structure was like this (all data was randomized):
[
{
"_id": "57fe684fb22a07039b3f196c",
"index": 0,
"guid": "98dd3515-3f1e-4b89-8bb9-103b0d67e613",
"isActive": true,
"balance": "$2,372.04",
"picture": "http://placehold.it/32x32",
"age": 21,
"eyeColor": "blue",
"name": "Green",
"company": "MIXERS"
},...
]
I ran the search test 100 times searching for different values for the name field, and then I calculated the mean time in milliseconds. Here you can see an example.
Results were that the method proposed on this answer needed about 2E-7 to find the value, while the accepted answer method needed about 8E-7.
Like I said before both times are pretty aceptable for an application using an array with this size. If the size grows a lot, let's say 1M elements, then this little difference will be increased too.
Update II
I've added a test for the method based in array_walk_recursive which was mentionend on some of the answers here. The result got is the correct one. And if we focus on the performance, its a bit worse than the others examined on the test. In the test, you can see that is about 10 times slower than the method based on array_search. Again, this isn't a very relevant difference for the most of the applications.
Update III
Thanks to @mickmackusa for spotting several limitations on this method:
- This method will fail on associative keys.
- This method will only work on indexed subarrays (starting from 0 and have consecutively ascending keys).
Solution 2:
Very simple:
function myfunction($products, $field, $value)
{
foreach($products as $key => $product)
{
if ( $product[$field] === $value )
return $key;
}
return false;
}
Solution 3:
This class method can search in array by multiple conditions:
class Stdlib_Array
{
public static function multiSearch(array $array, array $pairs)
{
$found = array();
foreach ($array as $aKey => $aVal) {
$coincidences = 0;
foreach ($pairs as $pKey => $pVal) {
if (array_key_exists($pKey, $aVal) && $aVal[$pKey] == $pVal) {
$coincidences++;
}
}
if ($coincidences == count($pairs)) {
$found[$aKey] = $aVal;
}
}
return $found;
}
}
// Example:
$data = array(
array('foo' => 'test4', 'bar' => 'baz'),
array('foo' => 'test', 'bar' => 'baz'),
array('foo' => 'test1', 'bar' => 'baz3'),
array('foo' => 'test', 'bar' => 'baz'),
array('foo' => 'test', 'bar' => 'baz4'),
array('foo' => 'test4', 'bar' => 'baz1'),
array('foo' => 'test', 'bar' => 'baz1'),
array('foo' => 'test3', 'bar' => 'baz2'),
array('foo' => 'test', 'bar' => 'baz'),
array('foo' => 'test', 'bar' => 'baz'),
array('foo' => 'test4', 'bar' => 'baz1')
);
$result = Stdlib_Array::multiSearch($data, array('foo' => 'test4', 'bar' => 'baz1'));
var_dump($result);
Will produce:
array(2) {
[5]=>
array(2) {
["foo"]=>
string(5) "test4"
["bar"]=>
string(4) "baz1"
}
[10]=>
array(2) {
["foo"]=>
string(5) "test4"
["bar"]=>
string(4) "baz1"
}
}
Solution 4:
Use this function:
function searchThroughArray($search,array $lists){
try{
foreach ($lists as $key => $value) {
if(is_array($value)){
array_walk_recursive($value, function($v, $k) use($search ,$key,$value,&$val){
if(strpos($v, $search) !== false ) $val[$key]=$value;
});
}else{
if(strpos($value, $search) !== false ) $val[$key]=$value;
}
}
return $val;
}catch (Exception $e) {
return false;
}
}
and call function.
print_r(searchThroughArray('breville-one-touch-tea-maker-BTM800XL',$products));