Hello everyone!
I spent some valuable time last night, trying to create a reliable algorithm to merge two arrays, so I can use PHP’s json_encode() for a simple logging class I’m writing, Loggy.
This morning, I found out that was unnecessary, turns out PHP’s array_combine() method could’ve got it all covered.
Let’s talk about the problem;
I had a format array, which has
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{ "ID", "ip", "message", "tag", "date" }
in it. I read some data from a file, it is separated by a certain pattern. I created an array using explode() :
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$entries = explode($separator, $line);
This produces an array like :
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{ "LGY_123456", "10.23.231.221", "This is a dummy message", "Foo", "03.11.2013 12:11" }
I wanted these two arrays to be transformed into key-value pairs.
My first approach was, to loop through the arrays using foreach and a counter; and create third array, which consumes more system resources and requires more time. The code follows.
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// Creating a third array to put my key-value pairs in.
$tmp = array();
// A counter to iterate through the format array.
$i = 0;
foreach($entries as $entry) {
$tmp[$format[i]] = $entry;
$i++;
}
$output = json_encode($tmp);
As you see, the code looks messy and it’s a long way to go, looping through all the contents.
Now, I’m using array_combine() to do all that, by one simple line:
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$output = json_encode(array_combine($format, $entries));
That’s all of it! Faster, reliable and clean-looking code.