How to merge array and preserve keys?

Question

I have two arrays:

$array1 = array('a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3); $array2 = array('d' => 4, 'e' => 5, 'f' => 6, 'a' => 'new value', '123' => 456); 

I want to merge them and keep the keys and the order and not re-index!!

How to get like this?

Array (     [a] => new value     [b] => 2     [c] => 3     [d] => 4     [e] => 5     [f] => 6     [123] => 456 ) 

I try to array_merge() but it will not be preserved the keys:

print_r(array_merge($array1, $array2));  Array (     [a] => 'new value'     [b] => 2     [c] => 3     [d] => 4     [e] => 5     [f] => 6     [0] => 456 ) 

I try to the union operator but it will not overwriting that element:

print_r($array1 + $array2);  Array (     [a] => 1   <-- not overwriting     [b] => 2     [c] => 3     [d] => 4     [e] => 5     [f] => 6     [123] => 456 ) 

I try to swapped place but the order is wrong, not my need:

print_r($array2 + $array1);  Array (     [d] => 4     [e] => 5     [f] => 6     [a] => new value      [123] => 456     [b] => 2     [c] => 3 ) 

I dont want to use a loop, is there a way for high performance?

Answer 1

You're looking for array_replace():

$array1 = array('a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3); $array2 = array('d' => 4, 'e' => 5, 'f' => 6, 'a' => 'new value', '123' => 456); print_r(array_replace($array1, $array2)); 

Available since PHP 5.3.

Update

You can also use the union array operator; it works for older versions and might actually be faster too:

print_r($array2 + $array1); 

Answer 2

@Jack uncovered the native function that would do this but since it is only available in php 5.3 and above this should work to emulate this functionality on pre 5.3 installs

  if(!function_exists("array_replace")){       function array_replace(){          $args = func_get_args();          $ret = array_shift($args);          foreach($args as $arg){              foreach($arg as $k=>$v){                 $ret[(string)$k] = $v;              }          }          return $ret;      }  }