PHP: Merge 2 arrays - php

Question

I've been trying the following for a day now and can't get it to work.
I'm getting information from a paginated source (say 3 pages in this example. So I've got 3 arrays to merge:
Array
(
[status] => Active
[nrEntries] => 6
[entries] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[sgname] => Merc
[timeentered] => 2016-02-08 04:30:00
)
[1] => Array
(
[sgname] => bystander
[timeentered] => 2016-03-17 20:55:00
)
)
)
Array
(
[status] => Active
[nrEntries] => 6
[entries] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[sgname] => Elvis
[timeentered] => 2016-03-08 04:30:00
)
[1] => Array
(
[sgname] => marcAR
[timeentered] => 2016-03-07 20:55:00
)
)
)
Array
(
[status] => Active
[nrEntries] => 6
[entries] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[sgname] => Killer
[timeentered] => 2016-03-09 05:30:00
)
[1] => Array
(
[sgname] => MyName
[timeentered] => 2016-03-05 21:45:00
)
)
)
The result I am looking for is to merge them into 1 array that I can return as a result.
Array
(
[status] => Active
[nrEntries] => 6
[entries] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[sgname] => Merc
[timeentered] => 2016-02-08 04:30:00
)
[1] => Array
(
[sgname] => bystander
[timeentered] => 2016-03-17 20:55:00
)
[2] => Array
(
[sgname] => Elvis
[timeentered] => 2016-03-08 04:30:00
)
[3] => Array
(
[sgname] => marcAR
[timeentered] => 2016-03-07 20:55:00
)
[4] => Array
(
[sgname] => Killer
[timeentered] => 2016-03-09 05:30:00
)
[5] => Array
(
[sgname] => MyName
[timeentered] => 2016-03-05 21:45:00
)
)
)
The problem that I'm running into is that with array_merge it won't work because of the identical index numbers of the records.
I tried the following, but that doesn't work either.
<?PHP
// add child array to the end of $result
for ($i=0 ; $i<2; $i++) {
$result['entries'][($page*2)+$i][] = $resultChild['entries'][$i];
}
?>

Answer 1

$a1['entries'] = array_merge_recursive($a1['entries'], $a2['entries'], $a3['entries']);

Answer 2

Try this:
$array1 = array(
'status' => 'Active',
'nrEntries' => 6,
'entries' => array(
array(
'sgname' => 'Merc',
'timeentered' => '2016-02-08 04:30:00'
),
array(
'sgname' => 'bystander',
'timeentered' => '2016-03-17 20:55:00'
)
)
);
$array2 = array(
'status' => 'Active',
'nrEntries' => 6,
'entries' => array(
array(
'sgname' => 'Elvis',
'timeentered' => '2016-03-08 04:30:00'
),
array(
'sgname' => 'marcAR',
'timeentered' => '2016-03-07 20:55:00'
)
)
);
$result = array_merge_recursive($array1, $array2);
$result['status'] = array_unique($result['status'])[0];
$result['nrEntries'] = array_unique($result['nrEntries'])[0];
echo "<pre>";
print_r($result);
echo "</pre>";
This gives the following:
Array
(
[status] => Active
[nrEntries] => 6
[entries] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[sgname] => Merc
[timeentered] => 2016-02-08 04:30:00
)
[1] => Array
(
[sgname] => bystander
[timeentered] => 2016-03-17 20:55:00
)
[2] => Array
(
[sgname] => Elvis
[timeentered] => 2016-03-08 04:30:00
)
[3] => Array
(
[sgname] => marcAR
[timeentered] => 2016-03-07 20:55:00
)
)
)
Hope this helps.

Answer 3

array_merge() is not recursive so it will replace your entries array as a whole. There is a function called array_merge_recursive(), but that won't work in your case either, since it will create arrays under status and nrEntries containing the values from all arrays.
What you need to do is to merge the 'big' page arrays, and then merge the entries separately. This could look like this:
// Keep all pages in an array
$pages = [$pageOne, $pageTwo, $pageThree];
// Merge the page arrays
$result = array_merge(...$pages);
// Clear entries as they only contain the data from the last page
$result['entries'] = [];
// Merge entries with the entries of each page separately
foreach ($pages as $page) {
$result['entries'] = array_merge($result['entries'], $page['entries']);
}
This is the simplest example I could think of. I hope it helps you in understanding what is going on, so you can refactor it to suit your needs.
As long as your entries arrays have numeric keys starting from 0, array_merge will append the values instead of replacing them.