in_array() and multidimensional array

Question

in_array() does not work on multidimensional arrays. You could write a recursive function to do that for you:

function in_array_r($needle, $haystack, $strict = false) {
    foreach ($haystack as $item) {
        if (($strict ? $item === $needle : $item == $needle) || (is_array($item) && in_array_r($needle, $item, $strict))) {
            return true;
        }
    }

    return false;
}

Usage:

$b = array(array("Mac", "NT"), array("Irix", "Linux"));
echo in_array_r("Irix", $b) ? 'found' : 'not found';

If you know which column to search against, you can use array_search() and array_column():

$userdb = Array
(
    (0) => Array
        (
            ('uid') => '100',
            ('name') => 'Sandra Shush',
            ('url') => 'urlof100'
        ),

    (1) => Array
        (
            ('uid') => '5465',
            ('name') => 'Stefanie Mcmohn',
            ('url') => 'urlof5465'
        ),

    (2) => Array
        (
            ('uid') => '40489',
            ('name') => 'Michael',
            ('url') => 'urlof40489'
        )
);

if(array_search('urlof5465', array_column($userdb, 'url')) !== false) {
    echo 'value is in multidim array';
}
else {
    echo 'value is not in multidim array';
}

This idea is in the comments section for array_search() on the PHP manual;

This will work too.

function in_array_r($item , $array){
    return preg_match('/"'.preg_quote($item, '/').'"/i' , json_encode($array));
}

Usage:

if(in_array_r($item , $array)){
    // found!
}

This will do it:

foreach($b as $value)
{
    if(in_array("Irix", $value, true))
    {
        echo "Got Irix";
    }
}

in_array only operates on a one dimensional array, so you need to loop over each sub array and run in_array on each.

As others have noted, this will only for for a 2-dimensional array. If you have more nested arrays, a recursive version would be better. See the other answers for examples of that.

if your array like this

$array = array(
              array("name" => "Robert", "Age" => "22", "Place" => "TN"), 
              array("name" => "Henry", "Age" => "21", "Place" => "TVL")
         );

Use this

function in_multiarray($elem, $array,$field)
{
    $top = sizeof($array) - 1;
    $bottom = 0;
    while($bottom <= $top)
    {
        if($array[$bottom][$field] == $elem)
            return true;
        else 
            if(is_array($array[$bottom][$field]))
                if(in_multiarray($elem, ($array[$bottom][$field])))
                    return true;

        $bottom++;
    }        
    return false;
}

example : echo in_multiarray("22", $array,"Age");

$userdb = Array
(
    (0) => Array
        (
            ('uid') => '100',
            ('name') => 'Sandra Shush',
            ('url') => 'urlof100'
        ),

    (1) => Array
        (
            ('uid') => '5465',
            ('name') => 'Stefanie Mcmohn',
            ('url') => 'urlof5465'
        ),

    (2) => Array
        (
            ('uid') => '40489',
            ('name') => 'Michael',
            ('url') => 'urlof40489'
        )
);

$url_in_array = in_array('urlof5465', array_column($userdb, 'url'));

if($url_in_array) {
    echo 'value is in multidim array';
}
else {
    echo 'value is not in multidim array';
}