Question

I have an array like this $a=("something","something else","another something"); and another array like this $b=("b","bb").

I would like to produce an $a = array("something"=>Array("b","bb"),"something else","another something");. How can achieve this?

Answer 1

Try array_map for more flexibility:

function map_a_thing(key, val, compare) {
  if (key == compare)
    return array(key => val);
  else
    return key;
  end
}

$c = array_map('map_a_thing', $a, $b, 'something');

Consider that you’re essentially asking a map-reduce question, where you seek a function to perform a given action upon a condition.

With this answer, you could iterate over your base array and re-map certain values

$map_targets = array('something', 'some2', 'some45', 'some-other');
foreach ($map_targets as $target) {
    $a = array_map('map_a_thing', $a, $b, $target);
}

See also, array_reduce, array_filter, and the generic array_walk