add to array if it isn't there already
PhpPhp Problem Overview
How do I add elements to an array only if they aren't in there already? I have the following:
$a=array();
// organize the array
foreach($array as $k=>$v){
foreach($v as $key=>$value){
if($key=='key'){
$a[]=$value;
}
}
}
print_r($a);
// Output
Array
(
[0] => 1
[1] => 2
[2] => 3
[3] => 1
[4] => 2
[5] => 3
[6] => 4
[7] => 5
[8] => 6
)
Instead, I want $a to consist of the unique values. (I know I can use array_unique to get the desired results but I just want to know)
Php Solutions
Solution 1 - Php
You should use the PHP function in_array (see http://php.net/manual/en/function.in-array.php).
if (!in_array($value, $array))
{
$array[] = $value;
}
This is what the documentation says about in_array:
> Returns TRUE if needle is found in the array, FALSE otherwise.
Solution 2 - Php
You'd have to check each value against in_array:
$a=array();
// organize the array by cusip
foreach($array as $k=>$v){
foreach($v as $key=>$value){
if(!in_array($value, $a)){
$a[]=$value;
}
}
}
Solution 3 - Php
Since you seem to only have scalar values an PHP’s array is rather a hash map, you could use the value as key to avoid duplicates and associate the $k keys to them to be able to get the original values:
$keys = array();
foreach ($array as $k => $v){
if (isset($v['key'])) {
$keys[$value] = $k;
}
}
Then you just need to iterate it to get the original values:
$unique = array();
foreach ($keys as $key) {
$unique[] = $array[$key]['key'];
}
This is probably not the most obvious and most comprehensive approach but it is very efficient as it is in O(n).
Using in_array instead like others suggested is probably more intuitive. But you would end up with an algorithm in O(n2) (in_array is in O(n)) that is not applicable. Even pushing all values in the array and using array_unique on it would be better than in_array (array_unique sorts the values in O(n·log n) and then removes successive duplicates).
Solution 4 - Php
if (!in_array(...))
array_push(..)
Solution 5 - Php
Easy to write, but not the most effective one:
$array = array_unique(array_merge($array, $array_to_append));
This one is probably faster:
$array = array_merge($array, array_diff($array_to_append, $array));
Solution 6 - Php
if (!in_array($value, $a))
$a[]=$value;
Solution 7 - Php
Try adding as key instead of value:
Adding an entry
function addEntry($entry) {
$this->entries[$entry] = true;
}
Getting all entries
function getEntries() {
return array_keys($this->enties);
}
Solution 8 - Php
If you don't care about the ordering of the keys, you could do the following:
$array = YOUR_ARRAY
$unique = array();
foreach ($array as $a) {
$unique[$a] = $a;
}
Solution 9 - Php
Since there are a ton of ways to accomplish the desired results and so many people provided !in_array() as an answer, and the OP already mentions the use of array_unique, I would like to provide a couple alternatives.
Using array_diff (php >= 4.0.1 || 5) you can filter out only the new array values that don't exist. Alternatively you can also compare the keys and values with array_diff_assoc. http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-diff.php
$currentValues = array(1, 2);
$newValues = array(1, 3, 1, 4, 2);
var_dump(array_diff($newValues, $currentValues));
Result:
Array
(
[1] => 3
[3] => 4
)
Another method is using array_flip to assign the values as keys and compare them using isset, which will perform much faster than in_array with large datasets. Again this filters out just the new values that do not already exist in the current values.
$currentValues = [1, 2];
$newValues = [1, 3, 1, 4, 2];
$a = array();
$checkValues = array_flip($currentValues);
foreach ($newValues as $v) {
if (!isset($checkValues[$v])) {
$a[] = $v;
}
}
Result:
Array
(
[0] => 3
[1] => 4
)
With either method you can then use array_merge to append the unique new values to your current values.
Result:
Array
(
[0] => 1
[1] => 2
[2] => 3
[3] => 4
)
Solution 10 - Php
If you're okay with using shorthands in your code (instead of writing explicit if blocks, like some coding standards recommend), you can further simplify Marius Schulz's answer with this one-liner:
in_array ($value, $array) || $array [] = $value;
Solution 11 - Php
you can try using "in_array":
function insert_value($value, &$_arr) {
if (!in_array($value, $_arr)) {
$_arr[] = $value;
}
}
Solution 12 - Php
Taking Gumbo's idea, making the code work:
$array = array('111111','222222','3333333','4444','5555',
'AAAAAA', 'BBBBBB', 'CCC', 'DDDDDDD', 'EEEEEEEE', 'FFFFFF', 'GGG',
'AAAAAA', 'BBBBBB', 'CCC', 'DDDDDDD', 'EEEEEEEE', 'FFFFFF', 'GGG',
'222222',
'666666', '777777', 'HHHH');
print_r($array);
$keys= array();
foreach ($array as $k => $v){
if (isset($v['value'])) {
$keys[$v] = $k;
}
}
$unique = array();
foreach ($keys as $key) {
$unique[] = $array[$key];
}
print "<br><br>";
print_r($unique);
Gives this:
Array
(
[0] => 111111
[1] => 222222
[2] => 3333333
[3] => 4444
[4] => 5555
[5] => AAAAAA
[6] => BBBBBB
[7] => CCC
[8] => DDDDDDD
[9] => EEEEEEEE
[10] => FFFFFF
[11] => GGG
[12] => AAAAAA
[13] => BBBBBB
[14] => CCC
[15] => DDDDDDD
[16] => EEEEEEEE
[17] => FFFFFF
[18] => GGG
[19] => 222222
[20] => 666666
[21] => 777777
[22] => HHHH
)
Array
(
[0] => 111111
[1] => 222222
[2] => 3333333
[3] => 4444
[4] => 5555
[5] => AAAAAA
[6] => BBBBBB
[7] => CCC
[8] => DDDDDDD
[9] => EEEEEEEE
[10] => FFFFFF
[11] => GGG
[12] => 666666
[13] => 777777
[14] => HHHH
)
Solution 13 - Php
With array_flip() it could look like this:
$flipped = array_flip($opts);
$flipped[$newValue] = 1;
$opts = array_keys($flipped);
With array_unique() - like this:
$opts[] = $newValue;
$opts = array_values(array_unique($opts));
Notice that array_values(...) — you need it if you're exporting array to JavaScript in JSON form. array_unique() alone would simply unset duplicate keys, without rebuilding the remaining elements'. So, after converting to JSON this would produce object, instead of array.
>>> json_encode(array_unique(['a','b','b','c']))
=> "{"0":"a","1":"b","3":"c"}"
>>> json_encode(array_values(array_unique(['a','b','b','c'])))
=> "["a","b","c"]"
Solution 14 - Php
Try this code, I got it from here
$input = Array(1,2,3,1,2,3,4,5,6);
$input = array_map("unserialize", array_unique(array_map("serialize", $input)));