Wildcard support for array_get

[KaneCohen]

Add ability to fetch items from the array with wildcard "*".

Example in the picture (and in the test).

[taylorotwell]

This is quite complicated. Does underscore.php or some other lib already offer this?

[KaneCohen]

@taylorotwell, no idea. I've checked google before starting to write this thing, but haven't found anything adequate (mostly when it comes to search it's about searching for keys/values with wildcard).

Which underscore? Underscore.php?

[bencorlett]

This is cool, quite cool. But, as Otwell said, does underscore already handle this? I'd also be interested on the performance implications on non wildcard arrays

[KaneCohen]

@bencorlett, don't think performance should be an issue. There's an if clause run on every key segment which checks if current segment is a wildcard. So, if it's a non wildcard key (i assume you meant that?) it should run maybe tiny little bit slower then current array_get. I'll add benchmarks later.

Checked Underscore.php (link above), but haven't found anything similar.

[taylorotwell]

I think we might want to implement this as a different method separate from array_get. I do think it's a pretty nifty method, but it adds quite a bit of complexity to the array_get function.

[KaneCohen]

Sure. I guess since array_get is one of the most used functions across the
framework it does have to be as fast as possible.
On May 5, 2013 4:23 AM, "Taylor Otwell" notifications@github.com wrote:

I think we might want to implement this as a different method separate
from array_get. I do think it's a pretty nifty method, but it adds quite a
bit of complexity to the array_get function.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//pull/1134#issuecomment-17443688
.

[taylorotwell]

Yeah it is used quite a bit since it used by configuration, etc.

[KaneCohen]

@bencorlett, ok, made a little benchmark to see the difference in speed between array_get with wildcard support and without. Tested on an Atom-powered netbook.

array_get with wildcard support.

array_get($array, 'users.0.name');

Loop with 1000 iterations: 0.02089 s
Loop with 100 iterations: 0.00213 s

array_get($array, 'users.*.name');
// will return array containing two names!

Loop with 1000 iterations: 0.04872 s
Loop with 100 iterations: 0.00503 s

---

array_get without wildcard support.

array_get($array, 'users.0.name');

Loop with 1000 iterations: 0.01531 s
Loop with 100 iterations: 0.00152 s

---

So, difference between 1000 iteration of users.0.name is 5 ms.

---

@taylorotwell

And about name. Maybe array_wget (wild get)? Although, it might be a little bit misleading since there's a wget program.

[taylorotwell]

array_select maybe?

[bencorlett]

Go to sleep Taylor! Lol

Sent from my iPhone
Please excuse my brevity

On 14/05/2013, at 4:18 PM, Taylor Otwell notifications@github.com wrote:

array_select maybe?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[bencorlett]

I like.

Sent from my iPhone
Please excuse my brevity

On 14/05/2013, at 4:18 PM, Taylor Otwell notifications@github.com wrote:

array_select maybe?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[KaneCohen]

Huh. Found myself trying to use wildcard with Input::get('*.body'); I'm thinking maybe keep it in array_get instead of renaming? I think performance trade off is pretty reasonable (~6ms or less on netbook running 10k iterations) considering functionality that thing adds. Besides that, without renaming it'll be immediately available for use with Input, File, Config and other calls

[taylorotwell]

This is just too nasty honestly. Feel free to implement in a Gist or a package or something.

[KaneCohen]

@taylorotwell, hah, yes it is nasty indeed. But, alas, some things are just nasty, especially when it comes to recursion.

I guess since #1340, is based off of that, i should close it too.

[fadillzzz]

This is something that I currently need for my project. If you don't mind, could you make a package out of it?

[KaneCohen]

@fadillzzz, do you need it as part of the Core? If not, you might want to just copy/paste function into app/start/global.php and naming in something like array_select and then using that one. Problem with extending default Support package (and helpers.php file specifically) is that it's kind of a backbone of the Laravel and you can't just swap it with a fork.

[fadillzzz]

@KaneCohen Nah, not really. In fact, I've just extended the Validator class and created a pretty short validation method that solves my problem. I think I'll just roll with that instead.

[KaneCohen]

@fadillzzz, added validation class with wildcard support to packagist.

[fadillzzz]

@KaneCohen heheh, didn't expect that you'd do it anyway. Thanks though, I might just fiddle around with it.

[KaneCohen]

@fadillzzz, no problem. I thought of adding it anyway, just haven't had enough initiative for that.