How to pull data from multiple arrays to construct one nice array? - php

Question

I have 4 arrays :
qb_array = { sku, stock } size:20803
valid_array = { sku, name, price, status } size:199803
by intersect qb_array && valid_array, base one sku then I have :
intersect_sku_array { sku } size:18795
Now, there are some data that I want to grab out of my first 2 arrays.
From qb_array, I want stock
From valid array - I want name, price, and status
Then I decide to create my 4th-array and called it :
4 - inserted_array ( because I will use this array to insert into my database )
I tried to construct it, and now I am stuck.
Here is my approach :
First, I did
foreach ($intersect_sku_array as $key ) {
$inserted_array[] = $key;
}
So far, over here is good - everything is working when I dd($inserted_array); I see all the stuffs in it.
Then, moving on to add the other 3 from my valid_array
foreach ($valid_array as $key => $value ) {
if ( in_array( $key , array_map('strtolower', $intersect_sku_array ) )){
$inserted_array[] = $value['name'];
$inserted_array[] = $value['price'];
$inserted_array[] = $value['status'];
}
}
Then I did dd($inserted_array); at the end, it is hanging on me.
After about 5 mn I got this error :
Maximum execution time of 300 seconds exceeded
Is it because I have too much data, or my code is stuck in the infinite loop some how ?
Can someone please explain all of these in details ?

Answer 1

Maybe this would help:
foreach($intersect_sku_array as $sku)
{
$qbRow = qb_array[array_search($sku,$qb_array)];
$validRow = valid_array[array_search($sku,$valid_array)];
inserted_array[] = array($sku, $qbRow[1], $validRow[1], $validRow[2], $validRow[3]);
}
Although I think it would be easier for you to use named arrays like the following:
qb_array = ['sku' => ['stock'=> 'actual stock']];
valid_array = ['sku' => ['name'=> 'actual name', 'price' => 'actual price', 'status' => 'actual status']];
Like so.

Answer 2

For one thing you are running the lowercasing inside the loop, which is certainly not the best way to save time.
Then you are constructing a "flat" array that will contain (sku, name, price, status) quadruplets (and no stock) in sequence.
I would rather have the database do a join on both tables, since SQL is a much better tool than PHP for that kind of job.
Now if for some reason you can't do that, better use sku as a key for your two arrays.
foreach ($qb_array as $val) $k_qb[strtolower($val['sku']) = $val['stock'];
foreach ($valid_array as $val) $k_va[strtolower($val['sku']) = array ($val['name'], $val['price'], $val['status']);
(if you must lowercase something, better do it late than never, but frankly this should also be done in the database, unless you're forced to work with garbage data)
Then you can do the join manually without any intermediate intersection array, like so:
forach ($k_qb as $sku => $stock) // use smallest array
{
if (!isset($k_va[$sku])) continue; // skip non-matching records
$record = $k_va[$sku];
$inserted_array[] = array (
'sku' => $sku,
'stock' => $stock,
'name' => $record[0],
'price' => $record[1],
'status' => $record[2]);
}
The order of the algorithm will be NlogM instead of MN if M and N are the sizes of both your arrays.