Remove duplicates in Laravel collection only if previous item is identical - laravel-5

Question

I have a Laravel Collection of items:
[
[
'id' => 1,
'path' => '/',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 20:12:00'
],
[
'id' => 2,
'path' => '/somewhere',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 21:01:00'
],
[
'id' => 3,
'path' => '/somewhere',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 21:21:00'
],
[
'id' => 4,
'path' => '/somewhere/else',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 21:09:00'
],
[
'id' => 5,
'path' => '/somewhere/else',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 21:10:00'
],
]
This is the raw data that would be found in the collection if I cast it to an array, but I need it to remain in collection format.
I need to remove any duplicates where the current item has the same path and is less than 5 minutes old compared to the previous item.
So in this case, item #4 would be removed leaving only #5, but items #2 and #3 would be kept even tho their paths are the same.
How would I do this?

Answer 1

Use the following namespace in your controller file:
use DateTime;
Use the following code in your controller file:
$collection = [
[
'id' => 1,
'path' => '/',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 20:12:00'
],
[
'id' => 2,
'path' => '/somewhere',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 21:01:00'
],
[
'id' => 3,
'path' => '/somewhere',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 21:21:00'
],
[
'id' => 4,
'path' => '/somewhere/else',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 21:09:00'
],
[
'id' => 5,
'path' => '/somewhere/else',
'created_at' => '2020-05-20 21:10:00'
],
];
$paths = [];
$time_count = [];
foreach ($collection as $key => $data) {
if (in_array($data['path'], $paths)) {
$arr_pos = array_search($data['path'], array_values($paths));
$datetime1 = new DateTime($data['created_at']);
$datetime2 = new DateTime($collection[$arr_pos]['created_at']);
$interval = $datetime1->diff($datetime2);
$mins = $interval->format('%i');
if ($mins < 5) {
unset($collection[$arr_pos]);
}
}
$paths[] = $data['path'];
}
This will return result:
array:4 [▼
0 => array:3 [▼
"id" => 1
"path" => "/"
"created_at" => "2020-05-20 20:12:00"
]
1 => array:3 [▼
"id" => 2
"path" => "/somewhere"
"created_at" => "2020-05-20 21:01:00"
]
2 => array:3 [▼
"id" => 3
"path" => "/somewhere"
"created_at" => "2020-05-20 21:21:00"
]
4 => array:3 [▼
"id" => 5
"path" => "/somewhere/else"
"created_at" => "2020-05-20 21:10:00"
]
]
I hope this works for you.