3d nested array foreach statement issue

Question

I have this array written below, and I know it isnt pretty, sorry. I come to this array structure as it is the only way I could think of when dealing with my post request.

$_POST = array("person" => array(
                                 [1] => array("id" => 1, "name" => "bob"), 
                                 [2] => array("id" => 2, "name" => "jim")
                                )
               );

I want to be able to pick "name" from certain "id", so below code is what I came up with. In the example below, if person["id"] is equal to 1, retrieve its "name" which is "bob".

foreach ($_POST as $dataSet) {
    foreach ($dataSet as $person) {
        foreach ($person as $field => $value) {
            if ($person["id"] == 1) {
                echo $person["name"];
            }
        }
    }
}

The problem I am having is as I execute the code. the result is bobbob,

it seems like the code looped the if statement twice (same as the number of elements in the person array). I know if I put break into the code, then it will solve it, but anyone know why it looped twice? Maybe this will deepen my foreach and array understanding.

Answer 1

There is no need to have third nested loop. Hope this one will be helpful.

Problem: In the third loop you were iterating over Persons: array("id" => 1, "name" => "bob") which have two keys. and you are checking only single static key $person["id"], that's why it was printing twice.

Solution 1:

Try this code snippet here

<?php

ini_set('display_errors', 1);

$POSTData = array("person" => array(
        1 => array("id" => 1, "name" => "bob"),
        2 => array("id" => 2, "name" => "jim")
    )
);
foreach ($POSTData as $dataSet)
{
    foreach ($dataSet as $person)
    {
        if ($person["id"] == 1)
        {
            echo $person["name"];
        }
    }
}

Solution 2:

Alternatively you can try this single line solution.

Try this code snippet here

 echo array_column($POSTData["person"],"name","id")[1];//here 1 is the `id` you want.