Merge every other array php - php

Question

array one: 1,3,5,7
array two: 2,4,6,8
the array i want would be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
I'm just using numbers as examples. If it was just numbers i could merge and sort but they will be words. So maybe something like
array one: bob,a,awesome
array two: is,really,dude
should read: bob is a really awesome dude
Not really sure how to do this. Does PHP have something like this built in?

Answer 1

You could write yourself a function like this:
function array_merge_alternating($array1, $array2) {
if(count($array1) != count($array2)) {
return false; // Arrays must be the same length
}
$mergedArray = array();
while(count($array1) > 0) {
$mergedArray[] = array_shift($array1);
$mergedArray[] = array_shift($array2);
}
return $mergedArray;
}
This function expects two arrays with equal length and merges their values.
If you don't need your values in alternating order you can use array_merge. array_merge will append the second array to the first and will not do what you ask.

Answer 2

Try this elegant solution
function array_alternate($array1, $array2)
{
$result = Array();
array_map(function($item1, $item2) use (&$result)
{
$result[] = $item1;
$result[] = $item2;
}, $array1, $array2);
return $result;
}

Answer 3

This solution works AND it doesn't matter if both arrays are different sizes/lengths:
function array_merge_alternating($array1, $array2)
{
$mergedArray = array();
while( count($array1) > 0 || count($array2) > 0 )
{
if ( count($array1) > 0 )
$mergedArray[] = array_shift($array1);
if ( count($array2) > 0 )
$mergedArray[] = array_shift($array2);
}
return $mergedArray;
}

Answer 4

Try this function:
function arrayMergeX()
{
$arrays = func_get_args();
$arrayCount = count($arrays);
if ( $arrayCount < 0 )
throw new ErrorException('No arguments passed!');
$resArr = array();
$maxLength = count($arrays[0]);
for ( $i=0; $i<$maxLength; $i+=($arrayCount-1) )
{
for ($j=0; $j<$arrayCount; $j++)
{
$resArr[] = $arrays[$j][$i];
}
}
return $resArr;
}
var_dump( arrayMergeX(array(1,3,5,7), array(2,4,6,8)) );
var_dump( arrayMergeX(array('You', 'very'), array('are', 'intelligent.')) );
var_dump( arrayMergeX() );
It works with variable numbers of arrays!
Live on codepad.org: http://codepad.org/c6ZuldEO

Answer 5

if arrays contains numeric values only, you can use merge and sort the array.
<?php
$a = array(1,3,5,7);
$b = array(2,4,6,8);
$merged_array = array_merge($a,$b);
sort($merged,SORT_ASC);
?>
else use this solution.
<?php
function my_merge($array1,$array2)
{
$newarray = array();
foreach($array1 as $key => $val)
{
$newarray[] = $val;
if(count($array2) > 0)
$newarray[] = array_shift($array2)
}
return $newarray;
}
?>
hope this help

Answer 6

Expects both arrays to have the same length:
$result = array();
foreach ($array1 as $i => $elem) {
array_push($result, $elem, $array2[$i]);
}
echo join(' ', $result);