I have a flat, indexed array supplied by user input. I need to consolidate values which have the same value before the pipe. When a prefix is encountered after the first time, the new value's suffix should be appended to the earlier value and separated by a comma.
Array
(
[0] => 1|1
[1] => 1|2
[2] => 1|3
[3] => 1|4
[4] => 1|5
[5] => 1|6
[6] => 1|32
[7] => 1|35
[8] => 2|1
[9] => 2|5
[10] => 3|1
[11] => 3|8
[12] => 3|11
[13] => 3|13
[14] => 3|35
)
Desired result:
Array
(
[0] => 1|1,2,3,4,5,6,32,35
[1] => 2|1,5
[2] => 3|1,8,11,13,25
)
Loop through your $_POST and explode using the | delimiter
$array = array('1|1','1|2','2|1','2|5','3|1','3|8');
//simplified version of your array
$new_array = array();
//define a new array that will be built in the loop below in your desired format
foreach($array as $item){ //loop through original array
$parsed_item = explode('|',$item);
//explode each item to split elements using the | as delimiter
if(isset($new_array[$parsed_item[0]])){
//if $new_array with the current key already exists add new value to existing array (concatenate with a comma to existing value)
$new_array[$parsed_item[0]] = $new_array[$parsed_item[0]].','.$parsed_item[1];
}else{
//else create new value on array
$new_array[$parsed_item[0]] = $parsed_item[0].'|'.$parsed_item[1];
}
}