up vote 0 down vote favorite

I have 2 arrays and am looking to find a value inside 1 of the arrays using PHP.

I realise I'd have to use the PHP explode function but I'm afraid that's where my skills end.

My function would compare the values of both arrays and if it finds any $needle values inside $haystack, it would return them inside $found. It could potentially find more than one, so perhaps $found should be an array too?

$needle = "Swimming,Landscaping,Gardening,Bricklaying,3D Modelling";
$haystack = "Football,Rugby,Landscaping,3D Modelling";
$found = magicFunction($needle,$haystick); 
// $found['0'] = "Landscaping";
// $found['1'] = "3D Modelling";

Does this make sense?

Many thanks for any pointers with this.

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5 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

You could do something like this:

$found = Array ();
$needle = "Swimming,Landscaping,Gardening,Bricklaying,3D Modelling";
$haystack = "Football,Rugby,Landscaping,3D Modelling";
$search = explode(',',$haystack);
foreach ( explode(',',$needle as $k => $v )
{
  if ( in_array ( $v, $search ) )
    $found[] = $v;
}

Or as David has said, you could use array_intersect:

$found = array_intersect ( explode( ',', $haystack ), explode( ',', $needle ) );
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Brilliant!! I'll try this just now - thank you!! – michaelmcgurk Dec 19 '12 at 9:11
up vote 6 down vote

PHP provides the handy function array_intersect to do that.

$needle = "Swimming,Landscaping,Gardening,Bricklaying,3D Modelling";
$haystack = "Football,Rugby,Landscaping,3D Modelling";

$needle = explode(",", $needle);
$haystack = explode(",", $haystack);

$intersection = array_intersect($haystack, $needle);
print_r($intersection);
//Array ( [2] => Landscaping [3] => 3D Modelling )
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Oooooh. I'll take a look at this. Thanks, David :-) – michaelmcgurk Dec 19 '12 at 8:56
up vote 0 down vote

The easiest way is probably to explode the needles and look for occurrences using strpos.

$needles = explode(',', $needle);
foreach ($needles as $n)
{
      if (strpos($n, $haystack)) {  }
}

Jan Hančič solution may be more appropriate and faster if you do not need the position of the string.

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up vote 1 down vote

You can produce arrays from the needle and the haystack, then find intersect of the two arrays:

<?php

$needle = "Swimming,Landscaping,Gardening,Bricklaying,3D Modelling";
$haystack = "Football,Rugby,Landscaping,3D Modelling";

$needle = explode(',', $needle);
$haystack = explode(',', $haystack);


$found = array_intersect($needle, $haystack);

print_r($found);
?>

http://tr1.php.net/array_intersect

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up vote 1 down vote

The function you are looking for is built in to PHP: array_intersect.

$a = explode(',', "Swimming,Landscaping,Gardening,Bricklaying,3D Modelling");
$b = explode(',', "Football,Rugby,Landscaping,3D Modelling");
$found = array_intersect($a, $b); 
print_r($found);

Output: Array ( [1] => Landscaping [4] => 3D Modelling )

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