PHP: Finding Element Number in Multidimensional Array and Storing that value

Question

I am using user user input into a form and then it will be searching through this array to see if their input is inside the array. So If a user searches for '45' I need to find its corresponding values in the array.

So if $myArray['Aames'][o] is 45 i need to also find $myArray['Names'][0] and so on. So i need a way to find the element number of '45' and store that number then print out the corresponding information.

 $myArray = array
                ( 
                "Names"=>array
                (
                "John",
                "Jane",
                "Rick"
                ),
                "Speciality"=>array
                (
                "Buisness",
                "sales",
                "marketing"
                ),
                "Aames"=>array
                (
                 "45",
                "Some guy",
                "Another guy"
                )
                );

Answer 1

$search = '45';

$key = array_search($search, $myArray['Aames']);

$name = $myArray['Names'][$key];

$speciality = $myArray['Speciality'][$key];

echo $name; //Outputs John

echo $speciality; //Outputs Business

Answer 2

You could generalize this a a bit with a function if you plan to apply it more generally.

function searchArray($query, $keyArray, $valuesArray){

    $key = array_search($query, $keyArray);

    $returnArray = array();
    foreach($valuesArray as $arrKey=>$arrVal){
        $returnArray[$arrKey] = $arrVal[$key];
    }

    return $returnArray;
}

$query is a string containing the value you are looking for in $keyArray and $valuesArray is an array of arrays that contain the values associated with the potential query strings.

Example: $userAttributes = searchArray('45', $myArray['Aames'], array('Names'=>$myArray['Names'], 'Speciality'=>$myArray['Speciality']));

$userAttributes should then be array('Names'=>'John', 'Speciality'=>'Buisness') [sic]