[SOLVED] Combine Similar Strings Value into Unique One

Combine Similar Strings Value into Unique One

I'm fetching a post meta from Wordpress CPT which's returning multiple strings form individually instead of array as shown below:

$data = $calendar->data();
foreach ($data as $event) { 
    $days = get_post_meta( $event->ID, 'sp_day', true );
    var_dump($days);
}

string(1) "1" string(1) "1" string(1) "1" string(1) "1" string(1) "1" string(1) "1" string(1) "2" string(1) "2" string(1) "2" string(1) "2" string(1) "2" string(1) "2" string(1) "3" string(1) "3" string(1) "3" string(1) "3" string(1) "3" string(1) "3" string(1) "4" string(1) "4" string(1) "4" string(1) "4" string(1) "4" string(1) "4" string(0) "" string(0) "" string(0) "" string(0) "" string(0) "" string(0) ""

I tried to convert it into array like $days = array(get_post_meta( $event->ID, 'sp_day', true )); the dump values were:

array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "1" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "1" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "1" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "1" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "1" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "1" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "2" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "2" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "2" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "2" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "2" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "2" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "3" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "3" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "3" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "3" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "3" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "3" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "4" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "4" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "4" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "4" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "4" } array(1) { [0]=> string(1) "4" } array(1) { [0]=> string(0) "" } array(1) { [0]=> string(0) "" } array(1) { [0]=> string(0) "" } array(1) { [0]=> string(0) "" } array(1) { [0]=> string(0) "" } array(1) { [0]=> string(0) "" }

Than I tried the array_merge() and array_unique()

None of the above steps have solved the issue. As you can see we have repeated values multiple times instead I want them unique to get each value only once such "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc."

Suggestions are highly appreciated

Solution

you can add an empty array before the for loop and inside the for loop you can check if the item exist in the array, if it doesn't exist you add the item to the array.

$data = $calendar->data();
$result = [];
foreach ($data as $event) { 
    $days = get_post_meta( $event->ID, 'sp_day', true );
    if(! in_array($days, $result)) {
        $result[] = $days;
    }

    
}
var_dump($result);