Associative Array From Multidimensional Array

Question

I am new to PHP an needed little help. It may be easy for some but giving me a tough time.

I have an array

Array ( [0] => page-18 [1] => page-20 )

Which I would like to explode further by '-':

$mainStringBrk = array('page-18', 'page-20');
$finalArray = array();
foreach($mainStringBrk as $bString){
    $mainStringBrkBrk = explode('-', $bString);
    $finalArray[$mainStringBrkBrk[0]] = $mainStringBrkBrk[1];
}
echo '<pre>'; print_r($finalArray);

When I do, it outputs only the last key and value of array.

Array ( page => 20 )

My desired output is:

Array ( page => 18, page => 20 )

I am wondering if anyone can guide me in right direction.

The problem is that you can't have 2 keys the same in an associative array, so the second one is overwriting the first. — Nigel Ren
– Nigel Ren, Commented Dec 1, 2019 at 20:35

Nick · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-01 20:54:17Z

1

You can't achieve the result you want as it is not possible to have an array with identical keys; this is why you only have one result in your output. You could change your output structure to a 2-dimensional array to work around this e.g.

$mainStringBrk = array('page-18', 'page-20');
$finalArray = array();
foreach($mainStringBrk as $bString){
    $mainStringBrkBrk = explode('-', $bString);
    $finalArray[$mainStringBrkBrk[0]][] = $mainStringBrkBrk[1];
}
print_r($finalArray);

Output:

Array
(
    [page] => Array
        (
            [0] => 18
            [1] => 20
        )
)

Or you can adopt this structure if it is better suited to your needs:

$finalArray = array();
foreach($mainStringBrk as $bString){
    $mainStringBrkBrk = explode('-', $bString);
    $finalArray[] = array($mainStringBrkBrk[0] => $mainStringBrkBrk[1]);
}
print_r($finalArray);

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [page] => 18
        )
    [1] => Array
        (
            [page] => 20
        )
)

Demo on 3v4l.org

edited Dec 1, 2019 at 20:54

answered Dec 1, 2019 at 20:35

Nick

147k23 gold badges67 silver badges106 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

Dev Chauhan Over a year ago

Thanks, but how can I achieve Array( [page] => 18 [page] => 20 )?

Nick Over a year ago

As I explained at the beginning of my answer, and as @NigelRen said in his comment to your question, that is not possible as it would require an array to have identical keys. If that was allowed what result would you expect to get from $array['page']? 18? or 20?

Dev Chauhan Over a year ago

Thanks for the guidance. I think I will stick to $finalArray[] = array($mainStringBrkBrk[0] => $mainStringBrkBrk[1]); in that case.

Nick Over a year ago

@DevChauhan no worries - what you propose is another valid way of splitting the data. For completeness I'll add it to the answer.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Associative Array From Multidimensional Array

1 Answer 1

4 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

4 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related