remove elements in multidimensional array based on two values - php

Question

I have in my example 2 arrays of court bookings for a particular date and time on 5 courts, with date, court number, member and type.
I want to remove items from the second array where there is a matching date/court in the first array.
Here is one timeslot. The first array shows the 2 bookings in this timeslot.
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 1
[2] => Annie
[3] => Regular
)
[1] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 3
[2] => Meredith
[3] => Regular
)
)
The second array is all the timeslots available on that date/time.
Array
(
[2] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 1
[2] =>
[3] => UNBOOKED
)
[3] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 2
[2] =>
[3] => UNBOOKED
)
[4] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 3
[2] =>
[3] => UNBOOKED
)
[5] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 4
[2] =>
[3] => UNBOOKED
)
[6] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 5
[2] =>
[3] => UNBOOKED
)
)
What I want to do is remove items in the second array which have a match on elements [0] and [1]. Every solution I've tried just searches arrays for strings, not another array.
The result would ideally look like this (the outer numeric keys are not important to me).
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 1
[2] => Annie
[3] => Regular
)
[1] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 3
[2] => Meredith
[3] => Regular
)
[3] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 2
[2] =>
[3] => UNBOOKED
)
[5] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 4
[2] =>
[3] => UNBOOKED
)
[6] => Array
(
[0] => Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM
[1] => 5
[2] =>
[3] => UNBOOKED
)
)

Answer 1

This is how you would use array filter to remove entries in the list of available times that exist in the list of booked times.
You can see this in action here: http://codepad.viper-7.com/VVbnys
$regular = Array(
0 => Array (
0 => 'Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM',
1 => 1,
2 => 'Annie',
3 => 'Regular',
),
1 => Array (
0 => 'Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM',
1 => 3,
2 => 'Meredith',
3 => 'Regular',
)
);
$unbooked = Array (
2 => Array
(
0 => 'Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM',
1 => 1,
2 => '',
3 => 'UNBOOKED',
),
3 => Array
(
0 => 'Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM',
1 => 2,
2 => '',
3 => 'UNBOOKED',
),
4 => Array
(
0 => 'Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM',
1 => 3,
2 => '',
3 => 'UNBOOKED',
),
5 => Array
(
0 => 'Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM',
1 => 4,
2 => '',
3 => 'UNBOOKED',
),
6 => Array
(
0 => 'Jul 6, 2014 7:00 AM',
1 => 5,
2 => '',
3 => 'UNBOOKED',
),
);
//filter the unbooked array
$unbooked = array_filter($unbooked, function($availSlot) use ($regular){
//loop over each taken slot
foreach($regular as $takenSlot){
//if keys 0 and 1 are the same in both taken and available...
if($availSlot[0] == $takenSlot[0] && $availSlot[1] == $takenSlot[1]){
//return false to remove this element from the array
return false;
}
}
//if we get here, no matches were found.
//return true so the element stays in the array
return true;
});
Ideally though, the format would be changed to a multidimensional array that allows you to nest stuff under the timeslots and numbers that are available without having to loop over every entry looking for one that matches.