Cannot remove null elements from nested array

Question

I have an array, $row2.

In $row2 two arrays are present. The output of $row2 is:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [Proposal_id] => 9
            [row] => 1
            [col1] => 2
            [col2] => 2
            [col3] =>
            [col4] =>
            [col5] =>
            [Type] => customtbl
            [Invoice_term] =>
            [Qoute] =>
            [Rate_per_hour] =>
            [Total] =>
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [Proposal_id] => 9
            [row] => 2
            [col1] => 3
            [col2] => 4
            [col3] =>
            [col4] =>
            [col5] =>
            [Type] => customtbl
            [Invoice_term] =>
            [Qoute] =>
            [Rate_per_hour] =>
            [Total] =>
        )

)

I want to remove null elements from the array, but I can't do this.

I tried the following methods:

array_filter($row2);
array_filter($row2, function($var){return !is_null($var);});
array_diff($rows2, array("null", ""));

@billyonecan that works, altho could have unexpected results as it will also remove zeros. — Napoli, Mar 20 '18 at 17:32
@billyonecan please post your comment as an answer to this question — Jonas Borggren, Mar 20 '18 at 17:35
Possible duplicate of [How to remove empty values from multidimensional array in PHP?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10214531/how-to-remove-empty-values-from-multidimensional-array-in-php) — mickmackusa, Apr 22 '18 at 07:36
and https://stackoverflow.com/q/16536960/2943403 and https://stackoverflow.com/q/43694052/2943403 — mickmackusa, Apr 22 '18 at 07:37

A l w a y s S u n n y · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-20T17:37:37.037

I've an one liner solution to filter out null values from multidimensional array if you use array_map along with array_filter,

    $array = [
    ['Proposal_id' => 9,
     'row' => 1,
     'col1' => 2, 
     'col2' => 2, 
     'col3' => null,
     'col4' => null,
     'col5' =>  null,
     'Type' => 'customtbl',
     'Invoice_term' => null,  
     'Qoute' => null,
     'Rate_per_hour' => null,  
     'Total' => null,
    ],
    [   
        'Proposal_id' => 9,
        'row' => 1,
        'col1' => 2, 
        'col2' => 2 ,
        'col3' => null,
        'col4' => null,
        'col5' =>  null,
        'Type' => 'customtbl',
        'Invoice_term' => null,  
        'Qoute' => null,
        'Rate_per_hour' => null,  
        'Total' => null,
    ]
];
$af = array_filter(array_map('array_filter', $array));
print '<pre>';
print_r($af);
print '</pre>';

Output:

 Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [Proposal_id] => 9
            [row] => 1
            [col1] => 2
            [col2] => 2
            [Type] => customtbl
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [Proposal_id] => 9
            [row] => 1
            [col1] => 2
            [col2] => 2
            [Type] => customtbl
        )

)

DEMO : https://eval.in/975240

@dani have you seen the demo? It should work..why it is not working for you? can you explain? — A l w a y s S u n n y, Mar 20 '18 at 17:42
i'm fetching the data from the database may be thats way not working — dani, Mar 20 '18 at 17:43
Yeah that could be a reason. But I've posted the answer based on your array structure on the question's code. Best of luck.. — A l w a y s S u n n y, Mar 20 '18 at 17:44

Napoli · Answer 2 · 2018-03-20T17:46:12.997

1

Use array_filter within array_map. Just remember you may want to run a different conditional rather than if($value) as this will validate against not only nulls, but zeros and empty strings.

array_map(function($var) {
    return array_filter($var, function($value) {
        if ( !is_null($value) )
            return $value;
    });
},$row2);

edited Mar 20 '18 at 17:46

answered Mar 20 '18 at 17:28

Napoli

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Cannot remove null elements from nested array

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