Remove duplicates from array but ignoring one parameter - php

Question

I have an array comprised of PHP objects as such:
$objects[0] => $object->type => 'President'
$object->name => 'Joe Blogs'
$object->address => '123 Harry Street'
$objects[1] => $object->type => 'Secretary'
$object->name => 'Joe Blogs'
$object->address => '123 Harry Street'
$objects[2] => $object->type => 'Treasurer'
$object->name => 'Jane Doe'
$object->address => '456 Upton Street'
I would like to ignore the type parameter and end up with:
$objects[0] => $object->type => 'President'
$object->name => 'Joe Blogs'
$object->address => '123 Harry Street'
$objects[2] => $object->type => 'Treasurer'
$object->name => 'Jane Doe'
$object->address => '456 Upton Street'
I have tried a few different things, one of which was to unset the parameter type using a foreach loop and then trying to reset it, but I wasn't sure how to tie the two indexes together to reset them. Another was trying to use the union in the select command but that wasn't working 100% correctly either.
I am just not sure how to best manage the type parameter.
EDIT:
I have tried to make the query a little easier, it now returns a list of IDs that I will get the address information later. This is the new array that I would like to filter out any duplicates.
$items['president'][0] = '1'
[1] = '2'
[2] = '3'
$items['secretary'][0] = '1'
[1] = '4'
[2] = '5'
What I would like is
$items['president'][0] = '1'
[1] = '2'
[2] = '3'
$items['secretary'][1] = '4'
[2] = '5'
Is that any better? (Note: I can use both array structures, but the second one would be better)

Answer 1

This should work for you:
Here I just go through each object from $objects. Then I go through all of your unique objects from $unique with array_reduce() and check if there is one object, which has the same values in name and address as the current one of the iteration.
If there in no object with the same values name and address in $unique I add it to it.
<?php
$unique = [];
foreach($objects as $o) {
$duplicate = array_reduce($unique, function($keep, $v)use($o){
if($v->name == $o->name && $v->address == $o->address)
return $keep = TRUE;
}, FALSE);
if(!$duplicate)
$unique[] = $o;
}
print_r($unique);
?>
output:
Array
(
[0] => stdClass Object
(
[type] => President
[name] => Joe Blogs
[address] => 123 Harry Street
)
[1] => stdClass Object
(
[type] => Treasurer
[name] => Jane Doe
[address] => 456 Upton Street
)
)
EDIT:
As from your updated question with the new array structure, something like this should work:
Just like before you have an array with the unique values and also an array to keep track on which values you already have in your $unique array. Then you can just loop through your array an check if the value isn't already in the values array.
<?php
$unique = [];
$values = [];
foreach($items as $keyOne => $arr) {
foreach($arr as $keyTwo =>$v) {
if(!in_array($v, $values)) {
$unique[$keyOne][$keyTwo] = $v;
$values[] = $v;
}
}
}
print_r($unique);
?>
output:
Array
(
[president] => Array
(
[0] => 1
[1] => 2
[2] => 3
)
[secretary] => Array
(
[1] => 4
[2] => 5
)
)

Answer 2

you can just use array_unique, this function compares objects using the toString method:
class obj{
public $type;
public $name;
public $address;
public function __construct($type, $name, $address){
$this->type = $type;
$this->name = $name;
$this->$address = $address;
}
public function __toString(){
return $this->name . $this->address;
}
}
$objects = array(
new obj('President','Joe Bogs','123 Harry Street'),
new obj('Treasurer','Joe Bogs','123 Harry Street'),
new obj('Secretary','Jane Doh','456 Harry Street'),
);
// array_unique compares the toString value if given objects
$unique = array_unique($objects);
Or, if for some Reason you can not use __toString in your Object, write your own unique function that can compare using a custom function that returns a unique_id as you want it:
function custom_array_unique($array, $function){
$res = array();
foreach($array as $o){
if(!isset($res[$function($o)])) {
$res[$function($o)] = $o;
}
}
return array_values($res);
}
$unique2 = custom_array_unique($objects, function($obj){
return $obj->name . $obj->address;
});
var_dump($unique2);

Answer 3

You can take the type as key, so it won't be duplicated, and in case you don't want to override, you can just verify it's existence by using array_key_exists, and after that you can array_values to get the order as required, see example below:
$newArray = array();
foreach($objects as $object){
if(!array_key_exists($object->name, $newArray)){
$newArray[$object->name] = $object;
}
}
$newArray = array_values($newArray);
echo '<pre>';
print_r($newArray);