How to prevent duplicate results in For Each loop? - php

Question

I am using a foreach loop to look at custom taxonomies associated with my custom post type. The issue I am having is that I am getting multiple buttons to display for posts that have more than one tax term selected.
What I would like to have happen is the loop search for one or more of the "age/grades" and then display a single button with the correct text and link. However, I am getting one button for each grade selected for the program (e.g. a Grade 3-6 program has four buttons: one for each applicable grade).
Any idea on how to prevent the duplicates?
Here is my current code:
<?php
$agegroup = wp_get_post_terms(get_the_ID(), 'camper_grade');
if ($agegroup) {
foreach ($agegroup as $group) {
if ($group->slug == 'age-2' || 'age-3' || 'age-4') { ?>
<a href="/preschool">
<div class="blue-btn">
More Preschool Camps
</div>
</a> <?php ;
}
elseif ($group->slug == '1st-grade' || '2nd-grade' || '3rd-grade' || '4th-grade' || '5th-
grade' || '6th-grade') { ?>
<a href="/grades-k-6">
<div class="blue-btn">
More Grade K-6 Camps
</div>
</a> <?php ;
}
elseif ($group->slug == '7th-grade' || '8th-grade' || '9th-grade' || '10th-grade' || '11th-
grade' || '12th-grade' ) { ?>
<a href="/teen">
<div class="blue-btn">
More Teen Adventures
</div>
</a> <?php ;
}
}
}
?>

Answer 1

Use separate foreach loops and break when it's found.
Your || is also not working how you want it to. You should use in_array which correctly compares the same value to many others:
<?php
$agegroup = wp_get_post_terms(get_the_ID(), 'camper_grade');
if ($agegroup) {
foreach ($agegroup as $group) {
if (in_array($group->slug, ['age-2', 'age-3', 'age-4'])) { ?>
<a href="/preschool">
<div class="blue-btn">
More Preschool Camps
</div>
</a> <?php ;
break;
}
}
foreach ($agegroup as $group) {
if (in_array($group->slug, ['1st-grade', '2nd-grade', '3rd-grade', '4th-grade', '5th-grade', '6th-grade'])) { ?>
<a href="/grades-k-6">
<div class="blue-btn">
More Grade K-6 Camps
</div>
</a> <?php ;
break;
}
}
foreach ($agegroup as $group) {
if (in_array($group->slug, ['7th-grade', '8th-grade', '9th-grade', '10th-grade', '11th-grade', '12th-grade'])) { ?>
<a href="/teen">
<div class="blue-btn">
More Teen Adventures
</div>
</a> <?php ;
break;
}
}
}
?>

Answer 2

You need to add a flag to indicate whether the button has been displayed already for that group, and only output the button if it hasn't. Note that your logical conditions are incorrect, you need to compare the slug with each value individually (or better yet, use in_array). For example:
if ($agegroup) {
$preschool = $grades_k_6 = $teen = false;
foreach ($agegroup as $group) {
if (in_array($group->slug, array('age-2', 'age-3', 'age-4')) && !$preschool) { ?>
<a href="/preschool">
<div class="blue-btn">
More Preschool Camps
</div>
</a> <?php ;
$preschool = true;
}
elseif (in_array($group->slug, array('1st-grade', '2nd-grade', '3rd-grade', '4th-grade', '5th-grade', '6th-grade')) && !$grades_k_6) { ?>
<a href="/grades-k-6">
<div class="blue-btn">
More Grade K-6 Camps
</div>
</a> <?php ;
$grades_k_6 = true;
}
elseif (in_array($group->slug, array('7th-grade', '8th-grade', '9th-grade', '10th-grade', '11th-grade', '12th-grade')) && !$teen) { ?>
<a href="/teen">
<div class="blue-btn">
More Teen Adventures
</div>
</a> <?php ;
$teen = true;
}
}
}