Question

I have 2 arrays – one array is coming from the database, another from external json:

$album = array( 'author' => 'John', 'id' => '1', 'title' => 'great trip', 'url' => 'http://somelink/index.php?view=show&id=13');

$likes = array( 'link' => 'http://somelink/index.php?view=show&id=13', 'likes' => '30', 'name' => 'great trip');

I would like to display the number of likes in the correct album.
What is the best way to do it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Since your question is somewhat vague, I’ll say that in general, the easiest way to merge two arrays on a specific common element is to use the common element as key:

$array1 = array(
    array('id' => 1, 'foo' => 'bar'),
    array('id' => 2, 'foo' => 'baz')
);

$array2 = array(
    array('id' => 1, 'name' => 'John'),
    array('id' => 3, 'name' => 'Jack')
);

$merged = array();

foreach ($array1 as $element) {
    $merged[$element['id']] = $element;
}

foreach ($array2 as $element) {
    if (isset($merged[$element['id']])) {
        $merged[$element['id']] += $element;
    } else {
        $merged[$element['id']] = $element;
    }
}

$merged[$element['id']] can only exist once, so you can use it to merge the two arrays.