You can't just compare two arrays with the === operator
like you would think to find out if they are equal or not. This is more complicated when you have multi-dimensional arrays. Here is a recursive comparison function.
<?php
/**
* Compares two arrays to see if they contain the same values. Returns TRUE or FALSE.
* usefull for determining if a record or block of data was modified (perhaps by user input)
* prior to setting a "date_last_updated" or skipping updating the db in the case of no change.
*
* @param array $a1
* @param array $a2
* @return boolean
*/
function array_compare_recursive($a1, $a2)
{
if (!(is_array($a1) and (is_array($a2)))) { return FALSE;}
if (!count($a1) == count($a2))
{
return FALSE; // arrays don't have same number of entries
}
foreach ($a1 as $key => $val)
{
if (!array_key_exists($key, $a2))
{return FALSE; // uncomparable array keys don't match
}
elseif (is_array($val) and is_array($a2[$key])) // if both entries are arrays then compare recursive
{if (!array_compare_recursive($val,$a2[$key])) return FALSE;
}
elseif (!($val === $a2[$key])) // compare entries must be of same type.
{return FALSE;
}
}
return TRUE; // $a1 === $a2
}
?>
