Question

I have simple array

array( 
   array( 'id'=>5, 'something' => 2, 'dsadsa' => 'fsfsd )
   array( 'id'=>20, 'something' => 2, 'dsadsa' => 'fsfsd )
   array( 'id'=>30, 'something' => 2, 'dsadsa' => 'fsfsd )
)

How to create associative array by id field (or something else) from it in the right way?

array( 
   '5' => array(  'something' => 2, 'dsadsa' => 'fsfsd )
   '20' => array(  'something' => 2, 'dsadsa' => 'fsfsd )
   '30' => array(  'something' => 2, 'dsadsa' => 'fsfsd )
)

Answer 1

@NikitaKuhta, nope. There is no slice function which returns a column of values in a 2D keyed table associated with a given key or column heading. You can use some of the callback array_… functions, but you will still need to execute a custom function per element so its just not worth it. I don’t like Core Xii’s solution as this corrupts the original array as a side effect. I suggest that you don’t use references here:

$new_array = array();
foreach ($original_array as $slice) {
    $id = (string) $slice['id'];
    unset($slice['id']);
    $new_array[$id] = $slice;
}
# And now you don't need the missing unset( $slice)