Merge multiple arrays (objects) and compare to another array - php

Question

My Problem
Trying to create similar arrays so I can compare them.
I am creating a distribution list for files, the adding of the distribution list work fine, I list user surname, user forename and user department, these are selected and posted, foreach user I retrieve the users.user_id and store this in a distribution table (under distro_lis)t like so.
distro_id (AI, PK) | distro_list | policy_id
---------------------------------------------
1 | 1 23 21 34 | 13
2 | 10 22 21 34 | 15
3 | 1 27 26 40 | 34
Now I working on the editing of the distribution list, so for a row, lets say row 1, I fetch the distro_list and parse it to get each user ID (from distro_list) using.
$policyID is received in the method argument
$db = $this->dbh->prepare('SELECT distro_list FROM distro WHERE policy_id = :policy_id');
$db->bindParam(':policy_id', $policyID);
$db->execute();
$row = $db->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
$ids = explode(' ',$row);
foreach ($ids as $user) {
$db = $this->dbh->prepare('SELECT user_forename, user_surname, user_dept FROM users WHERE user_id = :user_id ORDER BY user_surname ASC');
$db->bindParam(':user_id', $user);
$db->execute();
$row = $db->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
var_dump($row);
}
the var_dump($row) returns an array of arrays (objects.. not sure of the terminology here) which looks like so (print_r).
Array
(
[user_forename] => fname1
[user_surname] => sname1
[user_dept] => dept1
)
Array
(
[user_forename] => fname2
[user_surname] => sname2
[user_dept] => dept2
)
Array
(
[user_forename] => fname3
[user_surname] => sname3
[user_dept] => dept3
)
the array that I want to compare it to looks like so (print_r).
array
(
[0] => Array
(
[user_forename] => fname1
[user_surname] => sname1
[user_dept] => dept1
)
[1] => Array
(
[user_forename] => fname2
[user_surname] => sname2
[user_dept] => dept2
)
[2] => Array
(
[user_forename] => fname3
[user_surname] => sname3
[user_dept] => dept3
)
)
I understand why the first array looks like that, because im var_dump'ing' after each iteration. How can I get the first array (array of arrays or objects) into a single array so I can compare it to the second array?

Answer 1

Try this
$list_users = array()
foreach ($ids as $user) {
//...
$list_users[] = $row;
}
var_dump($list_users);