Update array inside array

Question

So I've read all the posts and followed along at home. I'm not a CS major. I have an array:

{% set testArray = {
  name: "John Doe",
  email: "[email protected]",
  players: [
  {
    playerName: "Jane Doe",
    PID: 8885551212,
    TID: 1234,
  },
  {
    playerName: "Billy Doe",
    PID: 8285551,
    TID: 1222,
  },
],
follows : [
    '234',
    '345',
    '999',
]}%}

Great, it verks!! When I ask it to spit it out via: {{testArray|json_encode}}, it spits out:

{"name":"John Doe","email":"[email protected]","players":[{"playerName":"Jane Doe","PID":8885551212,"TID":1234},{"playerName":"Billy Doe","PID":8285551,"TID":1222}],"follows":["234","345","999"]}

Huzzah, go me!

Now, if I want to update the players array, I'm trying this

{% set testA = { playerName:"Henry Doe",PID: 8885551333,TID: 1} %}
{% set testArray = testArray|merge({ "players": [testA]} ) %}

It'a good boi and does this BUT it overwrites the other 2 objects in the array and outputs

{"name":"John Doe","email":"[email protected]","players":[{"playerName":"Henry Doe","PID":8885551333,"TID":1}],"follows":["234","345","999"]}

So, the question is A) is it even possible? b) WTAF am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

The merge filter only does a shallow merge. This means that if both the first and the second hash (in Twig, an associative array is called a hash) have the same key, the final result will contain just the value of the second array. What you're looking for is a deep merge, which will recursive merge nested arrays and hashes.

Luckily, Craft extends Twig's merge filter to support a deep merge. Pass true as a second argument and the filter will perform a deep merge.

{% set newPlayer = { playerName: "Henry Doe", PID: 8885551333, TID: 1} %}
{% set testArray = testArray|merge({ players: [newPlayer], }, true) %}

As a sidenote, Twig isn't really designed or intended for this type of complex data manipulation. In most cases, you should do this in PHP – you can find examples of how to extend Twig with PHP functions here: https://craftcms.com/docs/4.x/extend/extending-twig.html