in_array() - Array in Array Search doesnt work

Question

I am trying to do something like this:

$fetch = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e');
$input = array('a', 'c', 'e');

    if (in_array($input, $fetch)) {
        echo "Array Values Exists";
    }

    else {
        echo 'Invalid Values Exists';
    }

Basically, I am trying to see if the values in $input array exists in the $fetch array. But the above results always shows as Invalid Values Exists instead of showing Array Values Exists. When I read the in_array() documentation here, from example #3, I thought I can use array in array for the parameters. Have I understood this wrong? What is the right way to do this?

surely array_intersect() or array_diff() are the best functions for this test rather than looping through the values — Mark Baker
– Mark Baker, Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 19:17
excellent. I wasnt aware of those. array_intersect() will work perfect for me since I am actually using this to match and validate the checkbox values from $_POST and array_intersect() will actually work well to filter out the array values instead of using a foreach statement that will be a few more lines of codes. Thank you for that. — Neel
– Neel, Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 19:26

Madara's Ghost · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-10 19:13:31Z

2

$needle can be an array, but that means you're looking for the array, not the elements in the array.

$a = array(array('p', 'h'), array('p', 'r'), 'o');

if (in_array(array('p', 'h'), $a)) {
//Note that array('p', 'h') is in the $haystack array, but not 'p' or 'h' alone.
    echo "'ph' was found\n";
}

If you want to check for the elements of the array, you'll need to iterate it somehow (be it with foreach or array_map()).

answered Jan 10, 2014 at 19:13

Madara's Ghost

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Neel Over a year ago

aha.. now I understand. I thought it was checking the values in the array and matching it. Re-reading the documentation after your posts made sense that its actually matching the array itself and not its values. Thanks for explaining this.

Abhik Chakraborty · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-10 19:17:38Z

1

How about

$fetch = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e');
$input = array('a', 'b', 'c');
$flag = true;
foreach($input as $key=>$val){
    if (!in_array($val, $fetch)) {
        $flag = false;
        break;
    }
}

if($flag=== true)
    echo "Values in input exists in fetch";
else
    echo "Values in input does not exists in fetch";

answered Jan 10, 2014 at 19:17

Abhik Chakraborty

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1 Comment

Neel Over a year ago

I tested this code and it works perfect! This will be really very useful! My other option was using array_intersect() like Mark Baker suggested above to filter out the values. But your code actually checks each value and returns false even if 1 of them doesnt match. That is excellent. Thank you so much! :)

hizbul25 · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-10 19:30:03Z

0

You can't use $input as array.

See below example :

<?php
$a = array(array('p', 'h'), array('p', 'r'), 'o');

if (in_array(array('p', 'h'), $a)) {
 echo "'ph' was found\n";
}

if (in_array(array('f', 'i'), $a)) {
  echo "'fi' was found\n";
}

if (in_array('o', $a)) {
  echo "'o' was found\n";
}

?>

The above example will output:

'ph' was found 'o' was found

answered Jan 10, 2014 at 19:30

hizbul25

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