Check if an array of an array contains a certain string - php

Question

I'm checking to make sure an array of arrays does not contain certain strings before adding any new child arrays to the parent array
I want to make sure that if an array with the same website and condition exists a new child array will not be added to the parent array.
e.g. in this example the $newArr must not be inserted in to the array $arr because their already exists an array with the same website and condition.
$arr = array(
array(
'website' => 'amazon',
'price' => 20,
'location' => 'uk',
'link' => '...',
'condition' => 'new'
),
array(
'website' => 'abe',
'price' => 20,
'location' => 'uk',
'link' => '...',
'condition' => 'new'
)
);
$newArr = array(
'website' => 'amazon',
'price' => 60,
'location' => 'uk',
'link' => '...',
'condition' => 'new'
)
I'm looking for an easy solution as using the function in_array on the parent array is not enough.
code so far
$arr = array();
foreach($table->find('tr.result') as $row){
if(($website = $row->find('a img',0))
&& ($price = $row->find('span.results-price a',0))
&& ($location = $row->find('.results-explanatory-text-Logo'))
&& ($link = $row->find('a',0))){
$website = str_replace( array('.gif','.jpg','.png'), '', basename($website->src));
$price = floatval(trim(str_replace(',', '', $price->innertext), "£"));
$location = "uk";
$link = $link->href;
$arr[] = array(
'website' => $website,
'price' => $price,
'location' => $location,
'link' => $link,
'condition' => 'new'
);
}
}

Answer 1

You loop over $arr each time to look for $website and $condition (always 'new'?) or you can keep a secondary array of the found keys. If you're starting with an empty $arr each time, the second approach will work and be faster.
$arr = array();
$keys = array();
foreach($table->find('tr.result') as $row){
if(...){
...
$condition = 'new'; // set as needed
// track seen keys
$key = $website . '|' . $condition; // assumes neither field contains '|'
if (!isset($keys[$key])) {
$keys[$key] = true;
$arr[] = array(...);
}
}
}

Answer 2

I hope the comments in the below code speak for themselves... I'm not a PHP pro, and this is probably not the most elegant way, but I believe the logic makes sense. Obviously the $new_array object has some variables that aren't declared but it's for example only.
I hope that helps and that no one down votes me :)
<?php
// Original array
$arr = array();
foreach($result as $row) {
// Get the new array as an object first so we can check whether to add to the loop
$new_array = array(
'website' => $website,
'price' => $price,
'location' => $location,
'link' => $link,
'condition' => 'new'
);
// If the original array is empty there's no point in looping through it
if(!empty($arr)) {
foreach($arr as $child) {
// Check through each item of the original array
foreach($new_array as $compare) {
// Compare each item in the new array against the original array
if(in_array($compare, $child)) {
// if there's a match, the new array will not get added
continue;
}
}
}
}
// If there's no match, the new array gets added
$arr[] = $new_array;
}
?>