Question

I have an array like the one below, I need to check for duplicates within the multi-dimensional associative array. I don’t think that I really need to say much more, I’ve already tried array_unique and it happens to think things are duplicates when they clearly aren’t.

I’m looking to change this:

array(3) {
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    ["itself"]=>
    string(31) "New York"
    ["status"]=>
    string(18) "great"
  }
  [2]=>
  array(2) {
    ["itself"]=>
    string(36) "New York"
    ["status"]=>
    string(22) "great"
  }
  [3]=>
  array(2) {
    ["itself"]=>
    string(29) "New York"
    ["status"]=>
    string(18) "great"
  }
}

In to this:

array(1) {
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    ["itself"]=>
    string(31) "New York"
    ["status"]=>
    string(18) "great"
  }
}

Answer 1

Is this an actual output, because the string-lengths don’t match… Maybe some hidden data (html-tags, non-printable characters, etc.)?

If not: array_unique wants a string representation:

 $result = array_intersect_key(
      $input,
      array_unique(array_map('serialize',$input)));