Searching in PHP Nested Arrays

Question

I've been digging in and learning as much as I can about PHP Arrays, but have hit a stumbling block that I cannot figure out.

In my example code, I have an array that looks like this:

$array = array("fruit" => array("apple", "orange", "pear"), "veg" => array("carrot","celery"));

Now, elsewhere in the code, I have a variable called $myfavouriteitem

$myfavouriteitem = "apple";

With the value of the $myfavouriteitem variable, I'd like to return the value "fruit".

I've tried using array_search() function in PHP, but I'm not having luck. I was able to use array_search() until the point where I introduced the nested array.

If I'm approaching this from the wrong angle, please let me know. My initial thought on this was to use a database to store this information (especially since I'm new to arrays); however, that's out of the question for this particular project. With that in mind, my data sets will all have a one-to-many relationship (one key with multiple values).

zerkms · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-06 01:34:17Z

1

foreach ($array as $key => $val) {
    if (in_array($myfavouriteitem, $val)) {
        echo $key;
        break;
    }
}

answered Jul 6, 2011 at 1:34

zerkms

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1 Comment

Andrew Over a year ago

Wonderful. Thanks, Zerkms. I was able to get this to work for me. I am going to spend some more time reviewing PHP arrays.

deceze · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-06 03:35:49Z

1

echo key(array_filter($array, function ($values) use ($myfavouriteitem) { return in_array($myfavouriteitem, $values); }));

Needs PHP 5.3 though and may be slower than @zerkms solution. But hey, it's a functional one-liner! ;)

edited Jul 6, 2011 at 3:35

answered Jul 6, 2011 at 1:45

deceze♦

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