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up vote 0 down vote favorite

I have a loop that contains a string of comma seperated values.

foreach ($profiles as $profile) {
  $user_states[] = exlpode(', ', '[string of comma seperated states]');
}

The problem I'm experiencing is the $user_states array ends up being two levels, with each itteration of the loop creating a nested array. 

array (size=2)
  0 => 
    array (size=3)
      0 => string 'DC' (length=2)
      1 => string 'Maryland' (length=8)
      2 => string 'Northern-Virginia' (length=17)
  1 => 
    array (size=1)
      0 => string 'North-Carolina,Virginia' (length=23)

How can I take exploded values and place them all into a single array? Thanks!

share|improve this question
1  
Your problem is that explode() returns an array. If you assign arrays as new elements into your target array $user_states you obviously get an array of arrays. –  arkascha Oct 26 '14 at 17:24
1  
initialize a main array before the loop and merge your explode to that (array_merge) –  boulder_02 Oct 26 '14 at 17:26

6 Answers 6

up vote 2 down vote accepted

[]= operator means add to array. explode method, returns an array, so what you are doing is adding an array into array.

since profiles probably contains 2 elements, you are getting an array of size 2 of exploded strings

what you are probably looking for is array_merge

replace the inner part of the loop with this:

$exploded    = exlpode(', ', '[string of comma seperated states]');
$user_states = array_merge($user_states, $exploded)
share|improve this answer
    
This makes perfect sense and is what I suspected, I'm just not sure how to merge the results of the exploded string into a single array. –  Pete Sorensen Oct 26 '14 at 17:26
    
see edited answer, you need array_merge –  Dima Oct 26 '14 at 17:27
    
@Niko 100% right, i just prefer using self descriptive method names when im answering on stackoverflow –  Dima Oct 26 '14 at 17:34
up vote 1 down vote

Did you try this

$user_states = exlpode(', ', '[string of comma seperated states]');

EDIT:

If I am not wrong this code helps you

$profiles = array( "yale, ny, la", "boston, vegas");

$user_states = array();

foreach ($profiles as $profile) {

    $tmp = explode(', ', $profile);
  $user_states = array_merge( $tmp, $user_states);
}


var_dump($user_states);
share|improve this answer
    
This would replace the elements in the array with each iteration of the foreach() loop –  Pete Sorensen Oct 26 '14 at 17:25
    
You are right. Searching for another solution... –  pbaldauf Oct 26 '14 at 17:27
up vote 1 down vote

What you need is:

$user_states = array();
foreach ($profiles as $profile) {
  $user_states = array_merge($user_states, exlpode(', ', '[string of comma seperated states]'));
}

Regards, Valentin

share|improve this answer
1  
Thank you for the answer. While it is correct, I'm going to give the credit to Dima for his clear explanation of the situation. –  Pete Sorensen Oct 26 '14 at 17:30
up vote 1 down vote

Use the merging function:

$states=array();

foreach ($profiles as $profile) {
    $user_states = exlpode(', ', '[string of comma seperated states]');
    array_merge($states,$user_states);
}

var_dump($states);
share|improve this answer
    
thanks, Niko. Damn copy & paste ;) –  boulder_02 Oct 26 '14 at 17:33
up vote 1 down vote

You can try 

$user_states = array();
...
$user_states += explode(', ', '[string of comma seperated states]');
...

This will keep adding the 'explode' arrays to the main $user_states array.

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

Since I don't know what you have in $profiles, I'm giving you a simple example.

$user_states = array();
$profiles = array('UK, FR, CA, AU', 'UK, FR, CA, AU', 'NW');

foreach ($profiles as $profile)
{
    $extract = explode(', ', $profile);
    $user_states = array_merge($user_states, $extract);
}

// if you want to remove duplications
$user_states = array_unique($user_states);

echo '<pre>';
print_r($user_states);

Will give you:

Array
(
    [0] => UK
    [1] => FR
    [2] => CA
    [3] => AU
    [8] => NW
)

AND

If you don't use array_unique()

Array
(
    [0] => UK
    [1] => FR
    [2] => CA
    [3] => AU
    [4] => UK
    [5] => FR
    [6] => CA
    [7] => AU
    [8] => NW
)
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