How to keep nested arrays on Laravel collection merge - php

Question

I'm going crazy with that.
Given I have 2 arrays like
$array1 = [
"data_to_merge" => ["2020-03-11 16:00:00", "2020-03-24 14:00:00"],
"data_to_merge_past_year" => ["2019-03-11 16:00:00"],
];
$array2 = [
"data_to_merge" => [],
"data_to_merge_past_year" => ["2018-03-11 14:00:00"],
];
My goal is to have result like
all: [
"data_to_merge" => [
"2020-03-11 16:00:00",
"2020-03-24 14:00:00"
],
"data_to_merge_past_year" => [
"2018-03-11 14:00:00",
"2018-03-11 16:00:00",
],
],
I tried simple with
$result = collect($array1)->merge(collect($array2));
But with that approach it will remove the values from data_to_merge from my first array. Is there any Laravel way to get that result? It can be more than 2 arrays, just to demonstrate.
Here is my full example, it's basically the same
$array1 = [
"host" => "blablubb",
"data_to_merge" => [
"2020-03-11 16:00:00",
"2020-03-24 14:00:00"
],
"data_to_merge_past_year" => [
"2019-03-11 16:00:00"
],
];
$array2 = [
"host" => "blablubb",
"data_to_merge" => [],
"data_to_merge_past_year" => [
"2018-03-11 16:00:00"
],
];
$array3 = [
"host" => "blablubb",
"data_to_merge" => [],
"data_to_merge_past_year" => [],
];
$array4 = [
"host" => "blablubb",
"data_to_merge" => [
"2020-03-04 14:00:00",
"2020-03-04 17:00:00"
],
"data_to_merge_past_year" => [],
];
$all = collect([$array1, $array2, $array3, $array4]);
$all
->groupBy('host')
->map(function ($item) {
if (count($item) > 1) {
$result = collect([]);
foreach ($item as $subItem) {
$result = $result->merge($subItem);
}
return $result;
}
return $item->first();
})
->values()
->toArray();
Thanks guys!

Answer 1

You can use mergeRecursive for this:
$array1 = [
"data_to_merge" => ["2020-03-11 16:00:00", "2020-03-24 14:00:00"],
"data_to_merge_past_year" => ["2019-03-11 16:00:00"],
];
$array2 = [
"data_to_merge" => [],
"data_to_merge_past_year" => ["2018-03-11 14:00:00"],
];
$result = collect($array1)->mergeRecursive(collect($array2));
Result:
Illuminate\Support\Collection {#1278 ▼
#items: array:2 [▼
"data_to_merge" => array:2 [▼
0 => "2020-03-11 16:00:00"
1 => "2020-03-24 14:00:00"
]
"data_to_merge_past_year" => array:2 [▼
0 => "2019-03-11 16:00:00"
1 => "2018-03-11 14:00:00"
]
]
}
From the docs:
The mergeRecursive method merges the given array or collection
recursively with the original collection. If a string key in the given
items matches a string key in the original collection, then the values
for these keys are merged together into an array, and this is done
recursively:
$collection = collect(['product_id' => 1, 'price' => 100]);
$merged = $collection->mergeRecursive(['product_id' => 2, 'price' => 200, 'discount' => false]);
$merged->all();
// ['product_id' => [1, 2], 'price' => [100, 200], 'discount' => false]