In a multidimensional array, if there is no unique pair of key => value (more than one pair of key => value) exists then in that case if we search the element by a single key => value pair then it can return more than one items. Therefore we can implement the search with more than one key => value pair to get unique items.
Approach: For each array inside the array, iterate over the search array and if any search key value doesn’t match with corresponding array key value we discard that array and continue the process for next array. Let’s understand this better with an example:
Suppose we want to search student details from a list of the student which contains student of different section, therefore, in this case, rollNo alone might not give the correct output. So we will need to search the list with two key => value that is rollNO and section.
Example:
<?php // PHP program to search for multiple // key=>value pairs in array function search($array, $search_list) { // Create the result array $result = array(); // Iterate over each array element foreach ($array as $key => $value) { // Iterate over each search condition foreach ($search_list as $k => $v) { // If the array element does not meet // the search condition then continue // to the next element if (!isset($value[$k]) || $value[$k] != $v) { // Skip two loops continue 2; } } // Append array element's key to the //result array $result[] = $value; } // Return result return $result; } // Multidimensional array for students list $arr = array( 1 => array( 'rollNo' => 44, 'name' => 'Alice', 'section' => 'B' ), 2 => array( 'rollNo' => 3, 'name' => 'Amit', 'section' => 'B' ), 3 => array( 'rollNo' => 3, 'name' => 'Bob', 'section' => 'A' ), 4 => array( 'rollNo' => 5, 'name' => 'Gaurav', 'section' => 'B' ), 5 => array( 'rollNo' => 5, 'name' => 'Gaurav', 'section' => 'A' ) ); // Define search list with multiple key=>value pair $search_items = array('rollNo'=>5, 'section'=>"A"); // Call search and pass the array and // the search list $res = search($arr, $search_items); // Print search result foreach ($res as $var) { echo 'RollNo: ' . $var['rollNo'] . '<br>'; echo 'Name: ' . $var['name'] . '<br>'; echo 'Section: ' . $var['section'] . '<br>'; } ?> |
RollNo: 5
Name: Gaurav
Section: A
