unique pairs storing in array in php - php

Question

I am stuck at a scenerio where i need to save user input like... (in 1 go i get these reuslt)
$string = "'a':'php,'b':'.Net' ...
'c' 'java'
'c' 'php'
'c' 'java'
'a' 'php'
'a' 'java' ";
Now i need to store all these values in a database (only unique pairs).
WHat i tried so far, exploded $string with "," and stored everything in an array like
$array["a"] = "php";...but this will overwrite a = java too... //problem
I don't need to check in database that if they exist already or not..this is handled already (all dumped data in one go get a unique identifier).
All i need to do is to get unique pairs and dump into database...means
a = php, a = java, b = .net, c = java, c=php
Only solution i could see was...after exploding ...check for the pair in db against new unique identified...mysql_num_rows...if does not exist then dump else dont...
Is there any easy way...??

Answer 1

The best way for your purpose is to create the multidimensional array
<?php
$string = "'a':'php','b':'.Net','c':'java','c':'php','c':'java','a':'php','a':'java'";
$array = array();
$temp_arr = explode(",", $string);
foreach($temp_arr as $key=>$value)
{
list($tempkey,$tempValue) = explode(':', $value);
$tempKey = trim($tempkey,"'");
$tempValue = trim($tempValue,"'");
$array[$tempKey][] = $tempValue;
}
$array = array_map('array_unique',$array);
echo "<pre>";
print_r($array);
?>
output will be
Array
(
[a] => Array
(
[0] => php
[2] => java
)
[b] => Array
(
[0] => .Net
)
[c] => Array
(
[0] => java
[1] => php
)
)

Answer 2

$string = "'a':'php,'b':'.Net','c':'java','c':'php','c':'java','a':'php','a':'java'";
$temp = array_map(function($item) {
list($key, $value) = explode(':', $item);
return array(str_replace("'", "", $key) => str_replace("'", "", $value));
}, explode(",", $string));
$results = array();
foreach($temp as $item) {
$key = key($item);
if(!isset($results[$key]) || !in_array($item[$key], $results[$key])) {
$results[$key][] = $item[$key];
}
}
print_r($results);
Output:
Array
(
[a] => Array
(
[0] => php
[1] => java
)
[b] => Array
(
[0] => .Net
)
[c] => Array
(
[0] => java
[1] => php
)
)