Remove empty entries in associated array php - php

Question

I have tried all the solutions suggested in this post but have not been able to make them work in my case.
My array :
array(2) {
["number_s"]=>
array(14) {
[0]=>
string(2) "22"
[1]=>
string(2) "23"
[2]=>
string(0) ""
[3]=>
string(0) ""
[4]=>
string(0) ""
}
["player_name"]=>
array(14) {
[0]=>
string(9) "John Doe"
[1]=>
string(11) "Jack Sparrow"
[2]=>
string(0) ""
[3]=>
string(0) ""
[4]=>
string(0) ""
}
}
I would like to remove all the empty entries but how to do that ?
Thanks a lot for help

Answer 1

It seems like array_filter for each subarray will do what you want.
$array['number_s'] = array_filter($array['number_s']);
$array['player_name'] = array_filter($array['player_name']);
When called without callback function it just removes all empty entries. See docs for details.
But be aware that it will remove "0" and all values which considered empty.

Answer 2

Assuming there aren't arbitrary numbers of subarrays, you may transverse them (as references) and use unset to remove them from the array:
foreach ($array as &$subarray) {
foreach ($subarray as $key => $value) {
if (empty($value)) {
unset($subarray[$key]);
}
}
}
It's simpler with a functional approach:
$array = array_map(
fn($subarray) => array_filter($subarray),
$array
);
If the array may have arbitrary levels, you may implement a recursive function:
function remove_empty_recursive(array &$array)
{
foreach($array as $key => &$value) {
if (empty($value)) {
unset($array[$key]);
} elseif (is_array($value)) {
remove_empty_recursive($value);
}
}
}
Notice all those solutions assume you want to remove "0", 0 and false from the array. Otherwise, you need to specify another criteria, instead of using empty. For instance:
$array = array_map(
fn($subarray) => array_filter(
$subarray,
fn($value) => !empty($value) || is_numeric($value) || $value === false
),
$array
);