README

Installation

composer require rikudou/array-merge-recursive

Description

The php function array_merge_recursive behaves a little confusingly and not at all like array_merge.

Example of confusing behavior:

<?php $array1 = [ 'test' => 'test' ]; $array2 = [ 'test' => 'test2' ]; $result = array_merge_recursive($array1, $array2); // $result =  // array(1) { // 'test' => // array(2) { // [0] => // string(4) "test" // [1] => // string(5) "test2" // } // }

As you can see, the built in function doesn't replace the same keys but instead merges them together.

Compared to regular array_merge:

<?php $array1 = [ 'test' => 'test' ]; $array2 = [ 'test' => 'test2' ]; $result = array_merge($array1, $array2); // $result =  // array(1) { // 'test' => // string(5) "test2" // }

The array_merge replaces the values with whatever comes latest but doesn't work for deep array structures.

This library replaces the array_merge_recursive behavior to work like regular array_merge while maintaining the ability to merge deep arrays recursively.

Example:

<?php use function Rikudou\ArrayMergeRecursive\array_merge_recursive; $array1 = [ 'test' => 'test' ]; $array2 = [ 'test' => 'test2' ]; $result = array_merge_recursive($array1, $array2); // $result =  // array(1) { // 'test' => // string(5) "test2" // }

Deeper level array example

These two arrays are used in the following example:

<?php $array1 = [ 'test' => [ 'key1' => 'test', 'key2' => 'test', 'key3' => 'test' ] ]; $array2 = [ 'test' => [ 'key2' => 'test2', 'key4' => 'test2' ] ];

Result of built-in array_merge_recursive

array(1) { 'test' => array(4) { 'key1' => string(4) "test" 'key2' => array(2) { [0] => string(4) "test" [1] => string(5) "test2" } 'key3' => string(4) "test" 'key4' => string(5) "test2" } } 

Here you can see that key2 gets changed to array with both values added.

Result of built-in array_merge

array(1) { 'test' => array(2) { 'key2' => string(5) "test2" 'key4' => string(5) "test2" } } 

Since array_merge doesn't work recursively it completely replaces the test key with value from 2nd array.

Result of array_merge_recursive from this library

array(1) { 'test' => array(4) { 'key1' => string(4) "test" 'key2' => string(5) "test2" 'key3' => string(4) "test" 'key4' => string(5) "test2" } } 

This library correctly replaces the key2 with later value while keeping the whole tree.