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up vote 2 down vote favorite

I need to merge those two arrays:

$ar1 = array("color" => array("red", "green"), "aa");
$ar2 = array("color" => array( "green", "blue"), "bb");
$result = array_merge_recursive($ar1, $ar2);

Expected output:

[
    'color' => [
        (int) 0 => 'red',
        (int) 1 => 'green',
        (int) 3 => 'blue'
    ],
    (int) 0 => 'aa',
    (int) 1 => 'bb'
]

But it outputs:

[
    'color' => [
        (int) 0 => 'red',
        (int) 1 => 'green',
        (int) 2 => 'green', (!)
        (int) 3 => 'blue'
    ],
    (int) 0 => 'aa',
    (int) 1 => 'bb'
]

I'm looking for the simplest way to do this, my array inputs won't be deeper than those examples.

share|improve this question
1  
First comment in php.net/manual/en/function.array-merge-recursive.php –  Mark.Ablov Sep 7 '14 at 15:55
    
Already tested it, but it doesn't work. it outputs: ['color' => [ 'geen', 'blue'], 'bb'] –  Ha Ja Sep 7 '14 at 16:11
    
The manual explains, see 'Description', that it will only merge 'string' keys, 'numeric' keys will be appended. Sadly, this prevents the 'array_merge_recursive' function doing what you require without modification of the 'keys'. May i suggest that your code would be more reliable with 'named' keys anyway? –  Ryan Vincent Sep 7 '14 at 19:01
    
I cant, its part of huge conf so i have to group datas. –  Ha Ja Sep 7 '14 at 21:13

1 Answer 1

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Here it is.

function array_merge_recursive_ex(array & $array1, array & $array2)
{
    $merged = $array1;

    foreach ($array2 as $key => & $value)
    {
        if (is_array($value) && isset($merged[$key]) && is_array($merged[$key]))
        {
            $merged[$key] = array_merge_recursive_ex($merged[$key], $value);
        } else if (is_numeric($key))
        {
             if (!in_array($value, $merged))
                $merged[] = $value;
        } else
            $merged[$key] = $value;
    }

    return $merged;
}
share|improve this answer
    
Works and unit tested ! Thanks –  Ha Ja Sep 13 '14 at 14:07

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