How can you make a multidimensional array unique?

Question

I've got a multidimensional array setup like the following:

array(
  [0]=>
  array(
    ["name"]=> "Foo"
    ["slug"]=> "Bar"
  )
  [1]=>
  array(
    ["name"]=> "Foo"
    ["slug"]=> "Bar"
  )
  [2]=>
  array(
    ["name"]=> "Test 1"
    ["slug"]=> "test-1"
  )
  [3]=>
  array(
    ["name"]=> "Test 2"
    ["slug"]=> "test-2"
  )
  [4]=>
  array(
    ["name"]=> "Test 3"
    ["slug"]=> "test-3"
  )
)

What would be the best way to search through the area for duplicates values in "name" and remove them, so that each value in the multidimensional array is unique?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Just looking at your particular case, I would recommend using a hash table instead of a 2-dimensional array. If you use your "name" as the key in the hash, each entry would be unique.

Is there a specific need for the multidimensional array?

Answer 2

You can use an associative array.

$temp_array = array();
foreach ($array as &$v) {
    if (!isset($temp_array[$v['name']]))
        $temp_array[$v['name']] =& $v;
}

This creates a temporary array, using $v['name'] as the key. If there is already an element with the same key, it is not added to the temporary array.

You can convert the associative array back to a sequential array, using

$array = array_values($temp_array);

Example code and output: http://codepad.org/zHfbtUrl