Checking to see if one array's elements are in another array in PHP

Question

I have two arrays in PHP as follows:

People:

Array
(
    [0] => 3
    [1] => 20
)

Wanted Criminals:

Answer 1

Here's a way I am doing it after researching it for a while. I wanted to make a Laravel API endpoint that checks if a field is "in use", so the important information is: 1) which DB table? 2) what DB column? and 3) is there a value in that column that matches the search terms?

Knowing this, we can construct our associative array:

$SEARCHABLE_TABLE_COLUMNS = [
    'users' => [ 'email' ],
];

Then, we can set our values that we will check:

$table = 'users';
$column = 'email';
$value = 'alice@bob.com';

Then, we can use array_key_exists() and in_array() with eachother to execute a one, two step combo and then act upon the truthy condition:

// step 1: check if 'users' exists as a key in `$SEARCHABLE_TABLE_COLUMNS`
if (array_key_exists($table, $SEARCHABLE_TABLE_COLUMNS)) {

    // step 2: check if 'email' is in the array: $SEARCHABLE_TABLE_COLUMNS[$table]
    if (in_array($column, $SEARCHABLE_TABLE_COLUMNS[$table])) {

        // if table and column are allowed, return Boolean if value already exists
        // this will either return the first matching record or null
        $exists = DB::table($table)->where($column, '=', $value)->first();

        if ($exists) return response()->json([ 'in_use' => true ], 200);
        return response()->json([ 'in_use' => false ], 200);
    }

    // if $column isn't in $SEARCHABLE_TABLE_COLUMNS[$table],
    // then we need to tell the user we can't proceed with their request
    return response()->json([ 'error' => 'Illegal column name: '.$column ], 400);
}

// if $table isn't a key in $SEARCHABLE_TABLE_COLUMNS,
// then we need to tell the user we can't proceed with their request
return response()->json([ 'error' => 'Illegal table name: '.$table ], 400);

I apologize for the Laravel-specific PHP code, but I will leave it because I think you can read it as pseudo-code. The important part is the two if statements that are executed synchronously.

array_key_exists() and in_array() are PHP functions.

source:

• https://php.net/manual/en/function.array-key-exists.php

• https://php.net/manual/en/function.in-array.php

The nice thing about the algorithm that I showed above is that you can make a REST endpoint such as GET /in-use/{table}/{column}/{value} (where table, column, and value are variables).

You could have:

$SEARCHABLE_TABLE_COLUMNS = [
    'accounts' => [ 'account_name', 'phone', 'business_email' ],
    'users' => [ 'email' ],
];

and then you could make GET requests such as:

GET /in-use/accounts/account_name/Bob's Drywall (you may need to uri encode the last part, but usually not)

GET /in-use/accounts/phone/888-555-1337

GET /in-use/users/email/alice@bob.com

Notice also that no one can do:

GET /in-use/users/password/dogmeat1337 because password is not listed in your list of allowed columns for user.

Good luck on your journey.