Question

How do I remove elements from an array of objects with the same name so it exists only once?

In the case below, I want to remove element 2 because the name is the same as element 0.
(It doesn’t matter to me that the term id or count is different).

array(1) { 
 [0]=> object(stdClass)#268 (3) { 
         ["term_id"]=> string(3) "486" 
         ["name"]=> string(4) "2012" 
         ["count"]=> string(2) "40"
 } 
 [1]=> object(stdClass)#271 (3) { 
         ["term_id"]=> string(3) "488" 
         ["name"]=> string(8) "One more"
         ["count"]=> string(2) "20"  
 } 
 [2]=> object(stdClass)#275 (3) { 
         ["term_id"]=> string(3) "512" 
         ["name"]=> string(8) "2012"
         ["count"]=> string(2) "50"  
 } 

Answer 1

If object’s ‘name’ property is public, like this:

$filteredObjArr = array();
$existNames = array();
foreach($objArray as $k => $obj) {
  if(!in_array($obj->name, $existNames)) {
    $filteredObjArr[$k] = $obj;
    $existNames[] = $obj->name;
  }
}

$objArray is the original Array, and$filteredObjArr is what you need.

If ‘name’ property is not public, use method to return ‘name’ instead of $obj->name. For example:

$obj->getName(); //this method name is example

If the class has no method to return ‘name’, you have to add it:

Class OriginalClass {

    //...something

    // add
    public function getName() {
        return $this->name;
    }
}

If you don’t wanna change original class, extend it:

Class ExtendedClass extends OriginalClass {
    public function getName() {
        return $this->name;
    }
}