alternative to in_array for unicode arrays

Question

The in_array function is very slow for large arrays due to doing a linear search.

A faster alternative is to search the key of the array.

Thus

if (isset($array[$val]))

is much faster than

if (in_array($val,$array))

for large arrays. However using unicode as array keys will not work.

Is there an alternative way to do this for unicode without resorting to linear searches such as in_array or array_search or generating hashes like md5?

But `isset` is working with utf keys - http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/9ec34e6d0e17a0fc46d88942179c2024043b585d — marv255, Jan 03 '20 at 08:24

Paflow · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-03T09:41:37.677

2

You can use anything as key which can be converted into a string.

Compare: Characters allowed in php array keys?

But nevertheless apparently some poeple have problems with special characters in their array-keys. I bet this may be the case if you use different encodings at the time you store the key and when you search for it. For example your keys come from a database using UTF-8, but when you search you have the key you search for hardcoded in a Iso-encoded PHP-script. This is just an example, there are dozens of scenarios like this. To ensure you always use the same encoding I would use rawurlencode.

edited Jan 03 '20 at 09:41

answered Jan 03 '20 at 08:21

Paflow

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this works great. i'll wait to see if there is a better answer before accepting this – user813801 Jan 03 '20 at 09:02

alternative to in_array for unicode arrays

1 Answers1