check php array for key/value duplicates -

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• how remove duplicate values multi-dimensional array in php 15 answers

my array this:

   $sth = array(         array("group" => "1", "name" => "john", "whatever" => "a"),         array("group" => "1", "name" => "john", "whatever" => "b"), // duplicate want remove         array("group" => "1", "name" => "henry", "whatever" => "c"),         array("group" => "2", "name" => "john", "whatever" => "d"),         array("group" => "2", "name" => "peter", "whatever" => "e")     ) 

and want remove duplicate 1/john entry, not 2/john since it's not duplicate. want check 2 values, not "whatever" value, since different. know use in_array search "john", or array_search check keys, keys don't correlate name, need remove duplicates key/value exact same. i'm thinking like:

$cleaned_sth = array(); foreach($sth $s) {     $group = $s[0];     $name = $s[1];     if( in_array($group => $name, $cleaned_sth ) continue;     else $cleaned_sth[] = array("group" => $group, "name" => $name); } 

here's pseudocode (since don't program in php long time now).

define empty map foreach(entry in array) map[entry["group"] + entry["name"]] = entry map.values