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I have created an array composed of records from my MySQL database. It contains a large number of recipes including a "nested" array.

What is the best way for me to allow users to search the array(s) for multiple terms and then only show the arrays that meet the criteria? Or should I try to build specific arrays for each search?

Here is a sample output of the array:

Sorry, I am not sure how to display this nicely.... 

35 => 
    array (size=17)
      'id' => string '35' (length=2)
      'name' => string 'Yummy stuff!!' (length=13)
      'recipeType' => string 'Appetizer' (length=9)
      'photo' => string 'url/recipe.gif' (length=31)
      'thumbnail_uri' => string '' (length=0)
      'published' => string '2002-04-03 00:00:00' (length=19)
      'summary' => string 'The summary of the recipe is that it is really good!' (length=52)
      'review' => string 'The review of this recipe is awesome! More please!' (length=50)
      'prepTime' => string '70' (length=2)
      'cookTime' => string '30' (length=2)
      'totalTime' => string '140' (length=3)
      'nutrition' => string 'No calories here.' (length=17)
      'instructions' => string 'I instruct you to cook it long and good, until it's warm' (length=60)
      'yield' => string 'It yields enough for me and you.' (length=32)
      'ingredient' => string '2 apples, one banana, and 18 lemons' (length=35)
      'author' => string 'John Sample Man' (length=12)
      'dietary_restrictions' => 
        array (size=2)
          6 => string 'Low fat' (length=7)
          7 => string 'Grain Free' (length=10)
36 => 
    array (size=17)
      'id' => string '36' (length=2)
      'name' => string 'A good recipe' (length=13)
      'recipeType' => string 'Appetizer' (length=9)
      'photo' => string 'url/recipe.gif' (length=31)
      'thumbnail_uri' => string '' (length=0)
      'published' => string '2002-04-03 00:00:00' (length=19)
      'summary' => string 'The summary of the recipe is that it is really good!' (length=52)
      'review' => string 'The review of this recipe is awesome! More please!' (length=50)
      'prepTime' => string '70' (length=2)
      'cookTime' => string '30' (length=2)
      'totalTime' => string '140' (length=3)
      'nutrition' => string 'No calories here.' (length=17)
      'instructions' => string 'I instruct you to cook it long and good, until it's warm' (length=60)
      'yield' => string 'It yields enough for me and you.' (length=32)
      'ingredient' => string '2 apples, one banana, and 18 lemons' (length=35)
      'author' => string 'John Sample Man' (length=12)
      'dietary_restrictions' => 
        array (size=2)
          4 => string 'Gluten-Free' (length=11)
          7 => string 'Grain Free' (length=10)
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Yes, you should handle searching with a database query, not fetch all the data, then let PHP do the work. PHP is slow with such things, while databases are built for exactly that purpose. – fab Jan 28 at 0:34

2 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

You want to do a nested array search and this question & it’s answers have a nice selection of approaches to the issue.

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up vote 0 down vote

Take a look at array_filter(). You can use it to check if the current entry matches the search terms, something like this:

$search = Array(
    "recipeType"=>"Appetizer",
    "dietary_restrictions"=>"Low fat"
);
$results = array_filter($big_array,function($e) use ($search) {
    foreach($search as $k=>$v) {
        if( is_array($e[$k])) {
            if( !array_search($v,$e[$k])) return false;
        }
        elseif(strcasecmp($v,$e[$k]) != 0) return false;
    }
    return true;
});
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