Replacing empty string with nulls in array php

Question

I'm sorry but i researched a lot about this issue. Is there a standard function to search and replace array elements?

str_replace doesn't work in this case, because what i wanna search for is an empty string '' and i wanna replace them with NULL values

this is my array:

$array = (
    'first' => '',
    'second' => '',
);

and i want it to become:

$array = (
    'first' => NULL,
    'second' => NULL,
);

Of course i can create a function to do that, I wanna know if there is one standard function to do that, or at least a "single-line solution".

if this happens to be going in to a db, you can default a field to null — user557846
– user557846, Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 23:36

Martin. · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-27 11:36:48Z

34

I don't think there's such a function, so let's create a new one

$array = array(
   'first' => '',
   'second' => ''
);

$array2 = array_map(function($value) {
   return $value === "" ? NULL : $value;
}, $array); // array_map should walk through $array

// or recursive
function map($value) {
   if (is_array($value)) {
       return array_map("map", $value);
   } 
   return $value === "" ? NULL : $value;
};
$array3 = array_map("map", $array);

edited Jan 27, 2021 at 11:36

answered Oct 10, 2012 at 23:35

Martin.

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Comments

rid · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-10 23:34:37Z

13

As far as I know, there is no standard function for that, but you could do something like:

foreach ($array as $i => $value) {
    if ($value === "") $array[$i] = null;
}

answered Oct 10, 2012 at 23:34

rid

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Comments

Mladen Janjetovic · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-21 11:32:56Z

2

Now you can use arrow function also:

$array = array_map(fn($v) => $v === '' ? null : $v, $array);

answered May 21, 2021 at 11:32

Mladen Janjetovic

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Comments

Maneendra Nath · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-23 12:32:34Z

0

You can use array_walk_recursive function.

$array = [
 'first' => '',
 'second' => ''
];
array_walk_recursive($array, function(&$value) { $value = $value === "" ? NULL : $value; });

answered May 23, 2022 at 12:32

Maneendra Nath

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