Removing Keys In Associative Array Not Working

Question

I am trying to retain only certain keys, and remove the rest from an external API. I have an array (http://pastebin.com/vU8T4y7h), "data" containing the objects:

foreach ($data as $media) {
    foreach (array_keys($media) as $media_key) {
        if ($media_key!=="created_time" && $media_key!=="likes" && $media_key!=="images" && $media_key!=="id") {
            unset($media[$media_key]);
        }
    }
}

In this case, I am trying to only keep the created_time, likes, images, and id keys, however, the above code isn't working. Any ideas as to why? Any other elegant solutions to achieve the same thing?

Answer 1

The reason this isn't working is because you aren't unsetting from the original $data object. You can fix it one of two ways. Either access by reference or update your unset to act on the original $data object instead.

Using reference:

foreach($data as &$media) {

Unsetting from $data

unset($data[$media][$media_key]);