Search a multidimensional array for more than one specific value - php

Question

I have a multidimensional array that looks something like this:
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[day] => Every Sunday
[time] => 08:00
[form] => normal
)
[1] => Array
(
[day] => Every Monday
[time] => 10:30
[form] => special
)
[2] => Array
(
[day] => Every Wednesday
[time] => 17:00
[form] => normal
)
)
I'd like to check if it contains specific days. For example, I'd like to check if it contains Monday and Sunday.
Using array_search works fine for one day. E.g. if I only want to check for Sunday:
array_search('Sunday', array_column($times, 'day'));
But it returns nothing if I pass in more than one day and attempt to search for Sunday and Monday:
array_search(array('Sunday', 'Monday'), array_column($times, 'day'));
Is there another way of doing this, preferably without iterating through everything using a for loop?

Answer 1

Your array for times defines the key 'day' twice, so this array will not be valid.
try changing your input array to
$times = array(
'Monday',
'Sunday
);
Secondly, array_search() cannot accept an array as its first value, as it is expecting a search term please see:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-search.php
As array search returns the Key of the array of the found value, this is not what you need here, you could use:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-count-values.php
this will grab a unique list of values in your input array and return a key => value set with the value => count as a new array.
$times = array('Monday','Tuesday','Wednesday','Monday','Monday');
print_r(array_count_values($times));
should return:
array (
[Monday] => 3
[Tuesday] => 1
[Wednesday] => 1
)
UPDATE:
After op gave a multidimensional array, the solution would be
array_count_values(array_column($array, $key));

Answer 2

You can use;
print_r(array_count_values($times));

Answer 3

One issue is that the needle for array_search is explicit, unlike strpos. So Sunday will not match a value of Every Sunday, assuming that One Sunday or Every Sunday may be desired to be searched for.
Since you already know the key to search for, I suggest using array_filterwith strpos instead. Then you can simply use count($filteredTimes) to determine how many or use array_keys($filteredTimes) to retrieve the keys as it would array_search;
It will be the equivalent of using array_column and array_search or array_count_values or array_keys($array, $search).
But instead of only returning an array of keys (or single key) with 2 iterations, it will return the original array values that contain the desired criteria or be empty, with 1 iteration.
Example: https://3v4l.org/uCUMr
$filteredTimes = array_filter($times, function($v) {
return isset($v['day']) && (false !== strpos($v['day'], 'Sunday') || false !== strpos($v['day'], 'Monday'));
});
$matchingDays = count($filteredTimes);
var_export($filteredTimes);
var_dump($matchingDays);
Result
array (
0 =>
array (
'day' => 'Every Sunday',
'time' => '08:00',
'form' => 'normal',
),
1 =>
array (
'day' => 'Every Monday',
'time' => '10:30',
'form' => 'special',
),
)
int(2)