In PHP, how do I deduplicate objects for production systems?

In PHP, to deduplicate objects and ensure that your production systems run efficiently, you can use a combination of array manipulation functions alongside type comparisons. This can help you maintain a clean list of unique objects based on specific properties.

// Example of deduplicating an array of objects based on a property
class Item {
    public $id;
    public $name;

    public function __construct($id, $name) {
        $this->id = $id;
        $this->name = $name;
    }
}

$items = [
    new Item(1, "Apple"),
    new Item(2, "Banana"),
    new Item(1, "Apple"), // Duplicate
    new Item(3, "Cherry"),
];

// Function to deduplicate objects by a specific property
function deduplicate($array, $property) {
    $unique = [];
    foreach ($array as $item) {
        $key = $item->$property;
        if (!isset($unique[$key])) {
            $unique[$key] = $item;
        }
    }

    return array_values($unique);
}

$uniqueItems = deduplicate($items, 'id');

print_r($uniqueItems); // This will output unique items by ID