I'm adding this as another answer to leave the previous one intact for someone coming across this looking for that variation on this behaviour.
Given the 2 arrays:
$array1 = array(30, 29, 20);
$array2 = array(30, 20, 10);
The maximum sum using one element from each is 59 - this is dramatically different to my previous approach (and the answers' of others) which took the max element of the first array and then the highest element of the next array that is not equal to any previously used value - this would give 50 instead.
The code you want is this:
$mainArray = array();
$mainArray[] = array(30, 29, 20);
$mainArray[] = array(30, 20, 10);
$tempArray = array();
$newArray = array();
foreach($mainArray as $innerArray) {
$newArray = array();
if (count($tempArray) == 0) {
foreach ($innerArray as $value) {
$newArray[] = array('total' => $value, 'used' => array($value));
}
}
else {
foreach ($tempArray as $key => $innerTempArray) {
$placed = FALSE;
foreach ($innerArray as $value) {
if (!(in_array($value, $innerTempArray['used']))) {
$newArray[] = array('total' => $tempArray[$key]['total'] + $value, 'used' => $tempArray[$key]['used']);
$newArray[count($newArray) - 1]['used'][] = $value;
$placed = TRUE;
}
}
if (!($placed)) {
echo "An array had no elements that had not already been used";
die();
}
}
}
$tempArray = $newArray;
}
$total = 0;
if (count($newArray) == 0) {
echo "No data passed";
die();
}
else {
$total = $newArray[0]['total'];
}
for ($i = 0; $i < count($newArray); $i++) {
if ($newArray[$i]['total'] > $total) {
$total = $newArray[$i]['total'];
}
}
var_dump($total);
EDIT - Do not repeat used variables (but repeated values are ok):
Let
//$a = 30, $b = 30, $c = 25, $d = 20, $e = 19
$array1 = array($a, $c, $d);
$array2 = array($b, $d, $e);
We want to choose $a from $array1 and $b from $array2 as these give the largest sum - although they're values are the same that is allowed because we only care if the names of the variables saved to that place are the same.
With the arrays in the above format there is no way of achieving the desired behaviour - the arrays do not know what the name of the variable who's value was assigned to their elements, only it's value. Therefore we must change the first part of the original answer to:
$mainArray[] = array('a', 'c', 'd');
$mainArray[] = array('b', 'd', 'e');
and also have either the of the following before the first foreach loop (to declare $a, $b, $c, $d, $e)
//either
extract(array(
'a' => 30,
'b' => 30,
'c' => 25,
'd' => 20,
'e' => 19
));
//or
$a = 30; $b = 30; $c = 25; $d = 20; $e = 19;
The above both do exactly the same thing, I just prefer the first for neatness.
Then replace the line below
$newArray[] = array('total' => $value, 'used' => array($value));
with
$newArray[] = array('total' => ${$value}, 'used' => array($value));
The change is curly brackets around the first $value because that is then evaluated to get the variable name to use (like below example):
$test = 'hello';
$var = 'test';
echo ${$var}; //prints 'hello'
A similar change replaces
$newArray[] = array('total' => $tempArray[$key]['total'] + $value, 'used' => $tempArray[$key]['used']);
with
$newArray[] = array('total' => $tempArray[$key]['total'] + ${$value}, 'used' => $tempArray[$key]['used']);
Now the code will function as wanted :)
If you are dynamically building the arrays you are comparing and can't build the array of strings instead of variables then there is no way to do it. You would need some way of extracting "$a" or "a" from $a = 30, which PHP is not meant to do (there are hacks but they are complicated and only work in certain situations (google "get variable name as string in php" to see what I mean)
