Question

I’m having a problem lately that’s driving me crazy. I have a multi-dimensional array like this:

$a = array(
'db' => array(
    '0' => array(
        'id' => '1',
        'name' => 'test',
        'cat' => array(
            'a' => '15',
            'b' => '20',
            'c' => '30'
        ),
        'canvas' => '2'
    ),
    '1' => array(
        'id' => '2',
        'name' => 'test2',
        'cat' => array(
            'a' => '15',
            'b' => '20',
            'c' => '30'
        ),
        'canvas' => '2'
    )
    '2' => array(
        'id' => '3',
        'name' => 'test',
        'cat' => array(
            'a' => '50',
            'b' => '40',
            'c' => '90'
        ),
        'canvas' => '1'
    )
)
);

And i want to search on it using a function like this: search(‘canvas = 1’);

That would return all the arrays, child of db, that have a key canvas with the value of 1. Or, for example:

search(‘a = 15’);

Would return all arrays that have a key, child of cat, named a and with a value of 15.

Answer 1

$a = array(
'db' => array(
    '0' => array(
        'id' => '1',
        'name' => 'test',
        'cat' => array(
            'a' => '15',
            'b' => '20',
            'c' => '30'
        ),
        'canvas' => '2'
    ),
    '1' => array(
        'id' => '2',
        'name' => 'test2',
        'cat' => array(
            'a' => '15',
            'b' => '20',
            'c' => '30'
        ),
        'canvas' => '2'
    ),
)
);

//checks if array $array contains element with $searchKey key, and $searchVal value
function arrayContains($array, $searchVal, $searchKey) {
        if (!is_array($array))
            return false;
        foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
            if ($key === $searchKey && $searchVal === $value)
                return true;
            if (is_array($value) && arrayContains($value, $searchVal, $searchKey))
                return true;
        }
        return false;
    }

function search($a, $search) {
    list($searchKey, $searchVal) = explode('=', $search);
    $result = array();
    foreach($a as $val) {
        if (arrayContains($val, $searchVal, $searchKey))
            $result[] = $val;
    }
    return $result;
}

print_r(search($a['db'], "a=15"));
print_r(search($a['db'], "canvas=1"));

Which produces this output(outputs sub-arrays of $a[‘db’] which contain searched key=>value pair):

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 1
            [name] => test
            [cat] => Array
                (
                    [a] => 15
                    [b] => 20
                    [c] => 30
                )

            [canvas] => 2
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [id] => 2
            [name] => test2
            [cat] => Array
                (
                    [a] => 15
                    [b] => 20
                    [c] => 30
                )

            [canvas] => 2
        )

)
Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 3
            [name] => test
            [cat] => Array
                (
                    [a] => 50
                    [b] => 40
                    [c] => 90
                )

            [canvas] => 1
        )

)