Removing an item from a multidimensional array in php by value - php

Question

I have a multidimensional array $array that looks like this:
array (size=3)
0 =>
array (size=1)
0 =>
object(stdClass)[500]
public 'id' => int 2
public 'first_name' => string 'Mary' (length=4)
public 'last_name' => string 'Sweet' (length=5)
1 =>
array (size=1)
0 =>
object(stdClass)[501]
public 'id' => int 9
public 'first_name' => string 'Joe' (length=3)
public 'last_name' => string 'Bob' (length=3)
2 =>
array (size=1)
0 =>
object(stdClass)[502]
public 'id' => int 1
public 'first_name' => string 'Shag' (length=4)
public 'last_name' => string 'Well' (length=4)
I would like to be able to remove one of the items in the array by searching for values (not indexes).
So, I would like to remove the item in the array that has the first_name property of 'Joe'.
So if I removed it, the array would look like this:
array (size=2)
0 =>
array (size=1)
0 =>
object(stdClass)[500]
public 'id' => int 2
public 'first_name' => string 'Mary' (length=4)
public 'last_name' => string 'Sweet' (length=5)
1 =>
array (size=1)
0 =>
object(stdClass)[502]
public 'id' => int 1
public 'first_name' => string 'Shag' (length=4)
public 'last_name' => string 'Well' (length=4)
How would I be able to do this? Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes you could just use a foreach in this case. It will work just fine. Just use your search string needle and add an if inside the loop comparing the objects property firstname and the needle:
$first_name_search = 'Joe';
foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
$value = reset($value); // get that index 0 which is nested
if($value->first_name == $first_name_search) {
unset($array[$key]);
}
}