How to merge arrays and keep keys?

Question

I have two arrays:

$array1 = array('a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3);
$array2 = array('d' => 4, 'e' => 5, 'f' => 6, 'a' => 'new value', '123' => 456);

I want to merge them and preserve keys and order instead of re-indexing! !

How did it become like this?

Array
(
    [a] => new value
    [b] => 2
    [c] => 3
    [d] => 4
    [e] => 5
    [f] => 6
    [123] => 456
)

I tried array_merge() but it doesn't preserve the keys:

print_r(array_merge($array1, $array2));

Array
(
    [a] => 'new value'
    [b] => 2
    [c] => 3
    [d] => 4
    [e] => 5
    [f] => 6
    [0] => 456
)

I tried using the union operator but it doesn't overwrite the element:

print_r($array1 + $array2);

Array
(
    [a] => 1   <-- not overwriting
    [b] => 2
    [c] => 3
    [d] => 4
    [e] => 5
    [f] => 6
    [123] => 456
)

I tried swapping places, but it was in the wrong order, not what I needed:

print_r($array2 + $array1);

Array
(
    [d] => 4
    [e] => 5
    [f] => 6
    [a] => new value 
    [123] => 456
    [b] => 2
    [c] => 3
)

I don't want to use loops, is there a way to get high performance?

Answer 1

Suppose we have 3 arrays as shown below.

$a = array(0=>['label'=>'Monday','is_open'=>1],1=>['label'=>'Tuesday','is_open'=>0]);

$b = array(0=>['open_time'=>'10:00'],1=>['open_time'=>'12:00']); 

$c = array(0=>['close_time'=>'18:00'],1=>['close_time'=>'22:00']);

Now if you want to merge all these arrays and want the final array to contain all the array data under keys 0 in 0 and 1 in 1 and so on.

Then you need to use the array_replace_recursive PHP function as follows.

$final_arr = array_replace_recursive($a, $b , $c);

The results are as follows.

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [label] => Monday
            [is_open] => 1
            [open_time] => 10:00
            [close_time] => 18:00
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [label] => Tuesday
            [is_open] => 0
            [open_time] => 12:00
            [close_time] => 22:00
        )

)

Hope the above solution can best suit your requirements! !

Answer 2

You are looking forarray_replace():

$array1 = array('a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3);
$array2 = array('d' => 4, 'e' => 5, 'f' => 6, 'a' => 'new value', '123' => 456);
print_r(array_replace($array1, $array2));

Available since PHP 5.3.

renew

You can also use the union array operator ; it works on older versions and may actually be faster too:

print_r($array2 + $array1);