php - Patterns for building multidimensional array with unique key -

problem: extract data object/array , represent data using multidimensional array unique key generated inner loop.

i find myself building multidimensional arrays this:

$final_array = array(); foreach ($table $row) {     $key = null;     $data = array();     foreach ($row $col => $val) {         /* logic goes here             data transformation / concatenation stuff */         if ($col=='my_unique_key_name') {             $key = $val;         }         $data[$col] = $val;     }     if (!is_null($key) {         if (!isset($final_array[$key]) {             $final_array[$key] = array();         }         $final_array[$key][] = $data;     } } 

i can't wonder if i'm doing out of habit, feels kind of verbose key-checking , whatnot. there native function not utilizing? can refactored more simple or overthinking this?

why doing that? doesn't seem common kind of stuff 1 works on day day basis... anyway, that's kinda cryptic (an example nice) have though of using md5 hash of serialized dump of array uniquely define key?

$key = md5(serialize($value));