Search multidimensional array and return new array

@cybercampbellAug 10.2011

Hi all

I’m stuck on this an i’m hopping to get some help.

I need to search an array of albums and videos (videos are child arrays of the album) for a value (in my case a tag) and then return the ‘video’ of the matched value as a new array (Not separated by albums).

This is a small example of how my main array is formatted (actual array contains over 20 albums and each album contains between 3 and 10 videos. Each video contains 4+ tags):

[code=php] Array ( [0] => Array ( [id] => 123456 [title] => Album 1 title [description] => This is my ALBUM description [url] => http:/example.com [total] => 2 [thumb] => http:/example.com/image-thumb.jpg [videos] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [id] => 345678 [title] => Video 1 title [privacy] => anywhere [url] => http:/example.com [album] => Album 1 title [description] => This is my VIDEO description [tags] => Array ( [0] => tag_0 [1] => tag_1 [2] => tag_2 )

[thumbs] => Array ( [0] => http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg [1] => http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg [2] => http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg [3] => http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg )

)

[1] => Array ( [id] => 456789 [title] => Video 2 title [privacy] => anywhere [url] => http:/example.com [album] => Album 1 title [description] => This is my VIDEO description [tags] => Array ( [0] => tag_2 [1] => tag_3 [2] => tag_4 )

[thumbs] => Array ( [0] => http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg [1] => http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg [2] => http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg [3] => http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg )

) )

)

[1] => Array ( [id] => 234567 [title] => Album 2 title [description] => This is my ALBUM description [url] => http:/example.com [total] => 2 [thumb] => http:/example.com/image-thumb.jpg [videos] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [id] => 567890 [title] => Video 3 title [privacy] => anywhere [url] => http:/example.com [album] => Album 2 title [description] => This is my VIDEO description [tags] => Array ( [0] => tag_5 [1] => tag_4 [2] => tag_3 )

[thumbs] => Array ( [0] => http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg [1] => http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg [2] => http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg [3] => http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg )

)

[1] => Array ( [id] => 567895 [title] => Video 4 title [privacy] => anywhere [url] => http:/example.com [album] => Album 2 title [description] => This is my VIDEO description [tags] => Array ( [0] => tag_2 [1] => tag_3 [2] => tag_4 )

[thumbs] => Array ( [0] => http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg [1] => http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg [2] => http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg [3] => http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg )

) )

) ) [/code]

for example I would like to search for all videos that contain the value ~~[B]~~[COLOR=”Red”](tag_2)[/COLOR][/B] in the child array with the key ~~[COLOR=”RoyalBlue”]~~~~[B]~~[tags][/B][/COLOR] and return a new array with JUST the matched videos (with all details)in one array.

Hope this makes sense. Would be good if tis was a function that would be quite robust if the array structure did for some reason change slightly.

~~[COLOR=”Red”]~~~~[B]~~tag_2[/B][/COLOR] was used about just as an example. I will need to set the search term in the function.

eg:

[code=php]$search_term = ‘tag_2’;

search_my_array($search_term, $my_array)[/code]

This would be the returned array if I searched ~~[COLOR=”Red”]~~~~[B]~~tag_2[/B][/COLOR]

[code=php]Array ( [0] => Array ( [id] => 345678 [title] => Video 1 title [privacy] => anywhere [url] => http:/example.com [album] => Album 1 title [description] => This is my VIDEO description [tags] => Array ( [0] => tag_0 [1] => tag_1 [2] => tag_2 )

[thumbs] => Array ( [0] => http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg [1] => http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg [2] => http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg [3] => http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg )

)

[thumbs] => Array ( [0] => http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg [1] => http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg [2] => http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg [3] => http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg )

)

[3] => Array ( [id] => 567895 [title] => Video 4 title [privacy] => anywhere [url] => http:/example.com [album] => Album 2 title [description] => This is my VIDEO description [tags] => Array ( [0] => tag_2 [1] => tag_3 [2] => tag_4 )

[thumbs] => Array ( [0] => http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg [1] => http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg [2] => http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg [3] => http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg )

) ) [/code]

Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers
C

to post a comment

PHP

13 Comments(s) _↴

@NogDogAug 11.2011 — #Untested, just a quick something to give you an idea:

[code=php]
 $matches = array();
 foreach($data as $album) {
 foreach($album as $video) {
 if(in_array($tagBeingSearched, $video) {
 $matches[] = $video;
 }
 }
 }
 echo "<pre>".print_r($matches, true)."</pre>";
 [/code]

@cybercampbellauthorAug 11.2011 — #Thanks Nog Dog

there was a missing bracket on line 4 but even when I put that in I didn't get any results.

just this:

[code=php]Array
 (
 )
 Array
 (
 )
 Array
 (
 )[/code]

Got the 3 empty arrays even when the there was no search term.

Any ideas?

@cybercampbellauthorAug 11.2011 — #ok.. i think i worked this out. It seems to be working.

Can you see anything wrong with this:

[code=php]$matches = array(); 
 
 foreach($albumInfo as $album) { 
 foreach($album['videos'] as $video) { 
 if(in_array($searchTag, $video['tags'])) { 
 $matches[] = $video; 
 } 
 } 
 } 
 echo "<pre>".print_r($matches, true)."</pre>"; [/code]

@cybercampbellauthorAug 11.2011 — #actually... thats not right and not working... I feel it should be this:

[code=php]foreach($albumInfo as $album) { 
 foreach($album['videos'] as $video) { 
 if(in_array($searchTag, $video)) { 
 $videoMatches[] = $video; 
 } 
 } 
 }[/code]

But this doesn't return any results

Ideas?

@cybercampbellauthorAug 11.2011 — #ok.. I read that in_array doesn't support multidimensional arrays so I found a recursive function.

I know have this but it only returns 2 results even though I know it should return more.

[code=php]$searchTag = 'My Tag';
 
 $videoMatches = array(); 
 
 function in_array_r($needle, $haystack) {
 foreach ($haystack as $item) {
 if ($item === $needle || (is_array($item) && in_array_r($needle, $item))) {
 return true;
 }
 }
 return false;
 }
 
 foreach($albumInfo as $album) { 
 foreach($album['videos'] as $video) { 
 if(in_array_r($searchTag, $video)) { 
 $videoMatches[] = $video; 
 } 
 } 
 }[/code]

Any ideas?

@cybercampbellauthorAug 11.2011 — #Also need to make sure it only matches in the tags array and not any other.

eg:

wouldn't want it to match the word cybercampbell in the album name:

[code=php][0] => Array 
 ( 
 [id] => 345678 
 [title] => Video 1 title 
 [privacy] => anywhere 
 [url] => http:/example.com 
 [album] => cybercampbell
 [description] => This is my VIDEO description 
 [tags] => Array 
 ( 
 [0] => tag_0 
 [1] => cybercampbell 
 [2] => tag_2 
 ) 
 
   [thumbs] => Array 
   ( 
   [0] => http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg 
   [1] => http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg 
   [2] => http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg 
   [3] => http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg 
   ) 
 
   ) [/code]

@NogDogAug 11.2011 — #This seems to work:

[code=php]
 <?php
 /**
 * The search function
 * @return array
 * @param array $arr
 * @param string $tag
 */
 function searchArrayByTag($arr, $tag)
 {
 $result = array();
 foreach($arr as $item) {
 foreach($item['videos'] as $video) {
 if(in_array($tag, $video['tags'])) {
 $result[] = $video;
 }
 }
 return $result;
 }
 }
 
 $data = array(
 '0' => array(
 'id' => '123456',
 'title' => 'Album 1 title',
 'description' => 'This is my ALBUM description',
 'url' => 'http:/example.com',
 'total' => '2',
 'thumb' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb.jpg',
 'videos' => array(
 '0' => array(
 'id' => '345678',
 'title' => 'Video 1 title',
 'privacy' => 'anywhere',
 'url' => 'http:/example.com',
 'album' => 'Album 1 title',
 'description' => 'This is my VIDEO description',
 'tags' => array(
 '0' => 'tag_0',
 '1' => 'tag_1',
 '2' => 'tag_2',
 ) ,
 'thumbs' => array(
 '0' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg',
 '1' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg',
 '2' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg',
 '3' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg',
 )
 ) ,
 '1' => array(
 'id' => '456789',
 'title' => 'Video 2 title',
 'privacy' => 'anywhere',
 'url' => 'http:/example.com',
 'album' => 'Album 1 title',
 'description' => 'This is my VIDEO description',
 'tags' => array(
 '0' => 'tag_2',
 '1' => 'tag_3',
 '2' => 'tag_4'
 ) ,
 'thumbs' => array(
 '0' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg',
 '1' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg',
 '2' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg',
 '3' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg'
 )
 )
 )
 ) ,
 '1' => array(
 'id' => '234567',
 'title' => 'Album 2 title',
 'description' => 'This is my ALBUM description',
 'url' => 'http:/example.com',
 'total' => '2',
 'thumb' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb.jpg',
 'videos' => array(
 '0' => array(
 'id' => '567890',
 'title' => 'Video 3 title',
 'privacy' => 'anywhere',
 'url' => 'http:/example.com',
 'album' => 'Album 2 title',
 'description' => 'This is my VIDEO description',
 'tags' => array(
 '0' => 'tag_5',
 '1' => 'tag_4',
 '2' => 'tag_3'
 ) ,
 'thumbs' => array(
 '0' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg',
 '1' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg',
 '2' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg',
 '3' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg'
 )
 ) ,
 '1' => array(
 'id' => '567895',
 'title' => 'Video 4 title',
 'privacy' => 'anywhere',
 'url' => 'http:/example.com',
 'album' => 'Album 2 title',
 'description' => 'This is my VIDEO description',
 'tags' => array(
 '0' => 'tag_2',
 '1' => 'tag_3',
 '2' => 'tag_4',
 ) ,
 'thumbs' => array(
 '0' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb0.jpg',
 '1' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb1.jpg',
 '2' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb2.jpg',
 '3' => 'http:/example.com/image-thumb3.jpg',
 )
 )
 )
 )
 );
 $test = searchArrayByTag($data, 'tag_2');
 echo "<pre>".print_r($test, true)."</pre>";
 [/code]

@cybercampbellauthorAug 11.2011 — #hmmm works with your array but not mine... I only get results from the first album. Strange thing is my array is the exact same format as the example one I used here.

Can I PM you my actual array (serialized in a txt doc)?

I can't post it here as it has sensitive information in it.

@NogDogAug 12.2011 — #It basically still worked for me, but I found an issue with inconsistent capitalization of the tags. I randomly picked "Motion Graphics" as the tag to search for, and after getting what seemed to be one less match that I should, I realized one video had the tag "motion graphics" (instead of "Motion Graphics"). I changed it to loop through the tags so that I could use strtolower(), which works but will be less efficient. This begs the question: could all this be done via the DB query, instead? (Assuming that's where the data is coming from?)

[code=php]
 <pre><?php
 $albums = unserialize(file_get_contents('albums.txt'));
 
 $tag = 'Motion Graphics';
 $result = array();
 
 foreach($albums as $album) {
 foreach($album['videos'] as $video) {
 foreach($video['tags'] as $t) {
 if(strtolower(trim($t)) == strtolower(trim($tag))) {
 $result[] = $video;
 break;
 }
 }
 }
 }
 
 print_r($result);
 ?></pre>
 [/code]

@cybercampbellauthorAug 13.2011 — #Awesome..all working thanks loads!!

Unfortuanatly the data is coming from a third party api so I can only get it as a serialized php array, json or xml. I figured php was the easiest for me as that is what I'm using anyway. No access to the database.

Thanks again.

C

@cybercampbellauthorSep 02.2011 — #Hi NogDog

I need a little help with a further customization of this script. The search for 'Tag' is perfect but I need another function that searches through the:

[title]

[album]

[description]

[tags]

This function will need to search through the string and match ANY word or phrase.

Also... the [description] is base64_encoded so will need to be decoded to search for the search term.

Any help will be very much appreciated.

I did try to modify your script but had no luck.

Cheers

C

@NogDogSep 03.2011 — #Untested:

[code=php]
 <?php
 function searchArrayByTag($arr, $tag)
 {
 $result = array();
 foreach($arr as $album) {
 foreach($album['videos'] as $video) {
 if (
 stripos($video['title'], $tag)       !== false or
 stripos($video['description'], $tag) !== false or
 stripos($video['album'], $tag)       !== false
 ) {
 $result[] = $video;
 } else {
 foreach($video['tags'] as $t) {
 if (strtolower(trim($t)) == strtolower(trim($tag))) {
 $result[] = $video;
 break;
 }
 }
 }
 }
 }
 }
 [/code]

@cybercampbellauthorSep 03.2011 — #Worked perfectly!!!!

Thanks again.

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