Question

I am extracting data from an xls document which returns as an array. The array keys however is not numeric, but resembles the cell column alphabetical digit. So effectively I have an array like this:

  // Example array:
  $array = array(
        [0] => array(
              "A" => "Name",
              "B" => "Surname",
              "C" => "",
              "D" => "Telephone"
        ),
        [1] => array(
              "A" => "Name",
              "B" => "Surname",
              "C" => "",
              "D" => "Telephone"
        ),
        [2] => array(
              "A" => "",
              "B" => "",
              "C" => "",
              "D" => ""
        )
  );

Now the problem with the returned array is it does not filter the array at all, and I may have rows and rows of empty values in the rows.

I need a way to either clean up the array completely so remove empty rows and digits, but this may give me some issues with array consistancy later.

What I am looking for is a function which can chop rows in an array by a alphebitical digit. So effectively something like array_chop($array”,”C”); which would then effectively unset all the remainder rows key and value pairs from D onwards.

Is this possible? Is there a php function already I can use? I am sorry that I cannot provide sample code but I have no idea where to start. The array is substancially large, so I am looking for a memory efficient solution.

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

If you want to copy only a small first portion of the column, this must be efficient:

<?php
$array = array(
      0 => array(
            "A" => "Name",
            "B" => "Surname",
            "C" => "",
            "D" => "Telephone"
            ),
      1 => array(
            "A" => "Name",
            "B" => "Surname",
            "C" => "",
            "D" => "Telephone"
            ),
      2 => array(
            "A" => "",
            "B" => "",
            "C" => "",
            "D" => ""
            )
      );

$last_column = 1;

$n = count($array);
for ($i = 0; $i < $n; ++$i)
{
      $copy = array();
      $j = 0;
      foreach($array[$i] as $key => $value)
      {
            if ($j <= $last_column)
            {
                  $copy[$key] = $value;
                 ++$j;
            }
            else
            {
                  $array[$i] = $copy;
                  break;
            }
      }
}

var_dump($array);

This leaves only name and surname in the matrix:

array(3) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    ["A"]=>
    string(4) "Name"
    ["B"]=>
    string(7) "Surname"
  }
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    ["A"]=>
    string(4) "Name"
    ["B"]=>
    string(7) "Surname"
  }
  [2]=>
  array(2) {
    ["A"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["B"]=>
    string(0) ""
  }
}