remove complete level of an array - php

Question

im trying to remove a complete level in an array
all the items starting with [1]
i am having no luck with arrays at all. kinda new to me. and reading all the stuff i find is not clear nor example like mine.
heres my code so far. i can remove the submit. but i cant go any farther plus im not sure how to remove all of them in heading,special,item, etc as item [1] - regular caesar salad
thank you for any help you may provide
code
<?php
// version:
$testarray =
Array(
"heading" => Array
(
"0" => 'Salads',
"1" => 'Salads',
"2" => 'Pasta',
),
"special" => Array
(
"0" => '',
"1" => '',
"2" => '',
),
"item" => Array
(
"0" => 'Small Green',
"1" => 'Regular Caesar',
"2" => 'Baked Lasagna',
),
"description" => Array
(
"0" => 'Grape tomatoes, onions, green peppers and cucumbers on the bed of crisp lettuce.',
"1" => 'Classic recipe with romaine lettuce and croutons',
"2" => 'With meat sauce, tomato vegetarian sauce or Alfredo sauce',
),
"price" => Array
(
"0" => 'See Desc',
"1" => '$5.99',
"2" => '$9.69',
),
"notes" => Array
(
"0" => 'Available in Small ($2.99), Regular ($5.99)',
"1" => '',
"2" => '',
),
"submit_val" => 'Submit'
);
echo "testarray";
echo "<pre>";
print_r($testarray);
echo "</pre>";
echo "<hr>";
$removed_data=removeItem($testarray,'Submit');
echo "removed_data";
echo "<pre>";
print_r($removed_data);
echo "</pre>";
echo "<hr>";
die();
// works for submit
function removeItem($look_in_Array, $remove){
foreach($look_in_Array as $key => $value) {
echo $key . ' = ' . $value . '<br>';
if ($value ==$remove) {
echo 'found '.$remove."<br>";
unset($look_in_Array[$key]);
}
}
return $look_in_Array;
}
?>
output desired?:
sample of desired output
$testarray =
Array(
"heading" => Array
(
"0" => 'Salads',
"1" => 'Pasta',
),
"special" => Array
(
"0" => '',
"1" => '',
),
"item" => Array
(
"0" => 'Small Green',
"1" => 'Baked Lasagna',
),
"description" => Array
(
"0" => 'Grape tomatoes, onions, green peppers and cucumbers on the bed of crisp lettuce.',
"1" => 'With meat sauce, tomato vegetarian sauce or Alfredo sauce',
),
"price" => Array
(
"0" => 'See Desc',
"1" => '$9.69',
),
"notes" => Array
(
"0" => 'Available in Small ($2.99), Regular ($5.99)',
"1" => '',
),
"submit_val" => 'Submit'
);

Answer 1

If I understand your question correctly, you're looking to remove any array key [1]. If you're doing this as a function anyway, you can either use unset or declare and return a new array. Using unset() might be what you're looking for, but it is sort of a waste of time in a function because it only passes a local variable. Instead, you may want to pass values onto a new array. Please note that this will retain key values.
function removeItemsRecursive($array,$searchKey) {
/*
** Finds any key value that equals $searchKey
** in a multi-level array and does not pass anything
** equal to $searchKey.
*/
foreach($array AS $key=>$value) { //go through each array and assign [key] => value to $key and $value, respectively
if($key !== $searchKey) //if a key is not equal to the $searchKey (aka 1 for example) then assign something to $newArray
{
if(is_array($value)) //if the value inside of the array is another array (for multilevel arrays)
{
$newArray[$key] = removeItemsRecursive($value,$searchKey); //loop through the function and do this for the next level down.
}
else //if the value inside of the array is scalar
{
$newArray[] = $array[$key]; //the new array is assigned the current value where the array key is not equal to $searchKey.
}
}
}
return $newArray;
}
This will essentially go through each value of the $array and pass that value to $newArray if the $key is not $searchKey, aka removeItemsRecursive($array,1); will return a new array without any values with the key being 1.
Calling the Function
To call the function, simply add:
$array = removeItemsRecursive($testarray,1);
When looking at this new array, you will see the results you're looking for.
echo "<PRE>";
print_r($array);
echo "</PRE>";
//returns the array you're looking for.

Answer 2

http://php.net/manual/en/function.unset.php
use unset function in php. in your case you could just iterate over the array and remove all the element at position 1.

Answer 3

function removeLevel($a, $l) { // $a = entire array, $l = level to remove
$removed = array();
foreach ($a as $inner) { // iterate through the outer array
array_splice($inner,$l,1); // remove the "$l"th element of the $inner array
}
return $a; // return new array with level removed
}
$arrBetter = removeLevel($testarray, 2) will return the array with that level of data removed!