Search for array in array of arrays

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0

I've found a few questions about searching arrays but none seem to satisfy my needs.

Basically I'm importing a large set of data from a CSV. I have:

$categories = array(
  [4] => array([1] => root_category, [2] => child_category, [3] => another_child, [4] => last_category),
  [8] => array([5] => root_category, [6] => child_category, [7] => another_child, [8] => last_category),
  [12] => array([9] => root_category, [10] => child_category, [11] => another_child, [12] => last_category),
);

// Category to insert:

$insert_category = array([1] => root_category, [2] => child_category, [3] => another_child, [4] => last_category);

I need to see if $insert_category already exists in $categories and then I need to return the key (which is the end ID of the category hierarchy) of the $categories array that matches.

In the $categories I have around 7500 rows of categories, a foreach loop over the $categories for each $insert_category is hitting the max execution time so I was wondering if there is a more efficient way of doing this?

I'm currently using something like this:

  if(count($categories) > 0)
  {
    foreach($categories as $key => $category)
    {
      if(count(array_diff($needle, $category)) === 0)
      {
        return $key;
      }
    }
  }

Which is giving me "Maximum execution time of 300 seconds exceeded".

Any help on this is much appreciated, been stuck for about 5 days now! Thanks in advance.

asked 29 secs ago

dirk

32

Search for array in array of arrays