I'm sure there is an easy way to do this, but I can't think of it right now. Is there an array function or something that lets me search through an array and find the item that has a certain property value? For example:
$people = array(
array(
'name' => 'Alice',
'age' => 25,
),
array(
'name' => 'Waldo',
'age' => 89,
),
array(
'name' => 'Bob',
'age' => 27,
),
);
How can I find and get Waldo?
With the following snippet you have a general idea how to do it:
foreach ($people as $i => $person)
{
if (array_key_exists('name', $person) && $person['name'] == 'Waldo')
echo('Waldo found at ' . $i);
}
Then you can make the previous snippet as a general use function like:
function SearchArray($array, $searchIndex, $searchValue)
{
if (!is_array($array) || $searchIndex == '')
return false;
foreach ($array as $k => $v)
{
if (is_array($v) && array_key_exists($searchIndex, $v) && $v[$searchIndex] == $searchValue)
return $k;
}
return false;
}
And use it like this:
$foundIndex = SearchArray($people, 'name', 'Waldo'); //Search by name
$foundIndex = SearchArray($people, 'age', 89); //Search by age
But watch out as the function can return 0 and false which both evaluates to false (use something like if ($foundIndex !== false) or if ($foundIndex === false)).
function SearchArray(array $array, ... and skip the is_array check though =)
function findByName($array, $name) {
foreach ($array as $person) {
if ($person['name'] == $name) {
return $person;
}
}
}
function getCustomSearch($key) {
foreach($people as $p) {
if($p['name']==$searchKey) return $p
}
}
getCustomSearch('waldo');
