Search value in multidimension array and keep keys association

Question

I have this array converted from xml of webservice. I have 500 items in this array. I want to search any value and return all found array items with key association ( similar to database select query ). So if I search 'dummy' then it should return first item of this array.

I tried stripos to search string in array value and in_array based functions but either it gives incorrect result or key association is not maintained.

I am unable to find a way to maintain key->value.

function search($array, $key, $value) 
{ 
    $results = array(); 

    if (is_array($array)) 
    { 
        if (isset($array[$key]) && $array[$key] == $value) 
            $results[] = $array; 

        foreach ($array as $subarray) 
            $results = array_merge($results, search($subarray, $key, $value)); 
    } 

    return $results; 
}

This may be worst function you have ever seen but this do the job. If some one can make it recursive ( array may be further deeper ).

function search_in_multi_array($srchvalue, $array)
    {
        $foundkey = '';
        if (is_array($array) && count($array) > 0)
            {
            foreach($array as $pkey => $pvalue)
                {
                foreach($pvalue as $ckey => $cvalue)
                    {
                    if (is_array($cvalue) && count($cvalue) > 0)
                        {
                        if(in_array($srchvalue,$cvalue))
                            {
                            $foundkey[$pkey][$ckey] = $cvalue;
                            }
                            foreach($cvalue as $dkey => $dvalue)
                                {
                                if(!is_array($dvalue))
                                    {
                                    $pos = stripos($dvalue, $srchvalue);
                                    if ($pos !== false)
                                        {
                                        $foundkey[$pkey][$ckey] = $cvalue; 
                                    }
                                }
                            }  
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        return $foundkey;
    }

Function call - $needle = 'fox'; search_in_multi_array($needle, $my_array); This is the output

Array
(
    [13.12.2014] => Array
        (
            [17] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 1672
                    [date] => 13.12.2014
                    [description] => brown fox jump
                    [room] => star
                    [Type1] => city
                    [from] => 17:00
                    [to] => 17:45
                    [assets] => Array
                        (
                            [asset] => Array
                                (
                                    [number] => 5275
                                    [detail] => prime two
                                )

                        )

                    [references] => Array
                        (
                            [reference] => Array
                                (
                                    [personnumber] => 479470
                                    [Type1] => manager
                                    [name] => Albert
                                    [department] => Purchase
                                    [cv] => Array
                                        (
                                            [pdetails] => follow later
                                        )

                                    [profile] => 1
                                )

                        )

                )

        )

)

what is your expected output for given array. put some example — Satish Sharma, Aug 29 '14 at 09:55
take a look here : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6661530/php-multi-dimensional-array-search — may saghira, Aug 29 '14 at 09:56
This is clearly a case for a nice recursive routine. :-) But yes, show u what you've got and the output you expect. — KIKO Software, Aug 29 '14 at 10:03

JimmyB · Answer 1 · 2014-08-29T11:41:57.393

0

You may want to have a look at XPath to run queries against the "raw" XML, see DOMXPath for example.

Something like /myRootTag/someDayTag[.//text()[contains(.,'MY_SEARCH_VALUE')]] should do the trick, selecting and returning all the someDayTag XML elements below the myRootTag which have the text MY_SEARCH_VALUE in any child node.

edited Aug 29 '14 at 11:41

answered Aug 29 '14 at 10:01

JimmyB

12,101
2
28
44

Is there no solution without XML functions? – atyagi Aug 29 '14 at 10:06
I'm sure there are other solutions, but if all you need is to extract the specific values/substructure from an XML document it should be much easier and concise to use a single XPath query instead of dozens of lines of code to convert XML to an array and search through the tree manually. – JimmyB Aug 29 '14 at 10:08

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 29 '14 at 10:21

You can use array_search() function to look through the array values. But array_search only looks in single-dimensional array.

Since you have a multi-dimensional array, you can write custom recursive function to search recursively in the array

function recursive_array_search($needle,$haystack) {
foreach($haystack as $key=>$value) {
    $current_key=$key;
    if($needle===$value OR (is_array($value) && recursive_array_search($needle,$value) !== false)) {
        return $current_key;
    }
}
return false;
}

But please note, using array_search() is a easier approach but not a optimised function. Which means if you're more concerned about your memory utilisation then I would also addtionally suggest.

Create a new array say 'dictionary' and store them like $dictonary[<key-searched>] = array('12.12.2014', '13.12.2014')
So you process them once, and cache them
So next time when you want search again for the same key, you can first check if the key exists in dictionary. If exists return from there, else use array_search and cache the results in dictionary

Its always easier to search by key-value than to search in a multi-dimensional array.

Thanks for your effort. But this function gives only top level key so if I search 'garden' , I get only 12.12.2014 — atyagi, Aug 29 '14 at 10:36
But isn't that exactly what you asked for? "So if I search 'dummy' then it should return first item of this array." - The requested "first item of this array" is just `$myArray['12.12.2014']`, isn't it? — JimmyB, Sep 02 '14 at 08:41

KIKO Software · Answer 3 · 2014-08-29T11:40:51.137

I've made a simple routine that will extract the values in the array you're looking for:

function search_keys($needle,$haystack)
{
  foreach($haystack as $key => $value)
  {
    if (is_array($value)) $output[$key] = search_keys($needle,$value);
    else if (strpos($value,$needle) !== FALSE) $output[$key] = $value;
  }
  return isset($output) ? $output : NULL; // prevent warning
}

echo '<pre>';
print_r(search_keys('garden',$data));
echo '</pre>';

This will return 'garden' as:

Array
(
    [12.12.2014] => Array
        (
            [7] => Array
                (
                    [Type] => garden
                )

        )

)

You can further process the output of this function, or change the function, as needed.

Search value in multidimension array and keep keys association

3 Answers3