How to delete an element from an array in php without array search?

Question

Delete an element from an array in php without array_search

I want to delete an array element from array, but I dont know the array key of that element only value is known

It is possible by array_search with value, first to find the key and then use unset

Is there any inbuilt array function to remove array element with array value ?

Yes, there is an infinite number of complicated ways to do it, but array_search is the most straight-forward. — deceze
– deceze ♦, Commented May 25, 2012 at 8:11

s.webbandit · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-25 08:10:04Z

4

You can only remove element from array only by referencing to this KEY. So you have to get this KEY somehow. The function to get the key for the searched value from array is exactly array_search() function which returns KEY for given VALUE.

answered May 25, 2012 at 8:10

s.webbandit

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1 Comment

jerclarke Over a year ago

An example here would probably be worthwhile, no?

Brad · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-25 08:13:57Z

2

Any function that has to "to remove array element with array value" will have to perform a loop over every* element looking for the value to delete. Therefore you might as well just add your own for loop to do this, or array_search() will do this for you.

The reason arrays have keys is so that you can get at values efficiently using that key.

*actually you'd stop looping once you'd found it rather than keep looking, unless there could be duplicates to remove

answered May 25, 2012 at 8:13

Brad

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Comments

Mark Baker · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-25 08:14:26Z

2

Example showing one way you can do this without using array_search()

$myArray = array(5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, -1, -2); 
$knownValue = 3;

$myArray = array_filter(
               $myArray, 
               function($value) use ($knownValue) {
                   return $value !== $knownValue; 
               }
           );

edited May 25, 2012 at 8:14

answered May 25, 2012 at 8:12

Mark Baker

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2 Comments

web-nomad Over a year ago

Won't it remove all occurrences of $knownValue, if it is repeating. But maybe that is the desired behavior in the question asked.

Mark Baker Over a year ago

@Pushpesh - yes, it will remove all occurrences of $knownValue if there are duplicates... otherwise you need some form of mechanism to identifyu which you want to delete.... but you'd need that however you were trying to remove only one occurrence of several (even array_search() won't necessarily help you there)

nyson · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-25 08:16:02Z

0

The only valid case to not use array_search is if you'd like to unset several values. You still need to use keys though. I'd recommend you to iterate through the array and remove fields that match your criteria.

foreach($array as $key => $value) {
    if($value === $deleteValue)
        unset($array[$key]);
}

answered May 25, 2012 at 8:16

nyson

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