These are two functions to manipulate PHP objects.

The first function is similar to array_merge function in that it merges two objects based on an index.

The second function in_object also acts like in_array to which it checks if a certain index exists in an array at a specific value.

Hopefully someone finds it helpful.

PHP Code:

<?php

/*
Object merge and in Object functions
*/

function object_merge($objectFrom,$objectTo,$indexUse)
{
    $objectReturn = array();
    foreach($objectFrom as $curObject)
    {        
        $index = in_object($indexUse,$curObject->$indexUse,$objectTo,true);
        if(is_int($index))
        {
            foreach($objectTo[$index] as $indexName => $indexValue)
            {
                $curObject->$indexName = $indexValue;
            }
        }
        $objectReturn[] = (object) $curObject;        
    }
    return $objectReturn;
}

function in_object($searchFor,$searchValue,$objectSearch,$returnResult)
{
    foreach($objectSearch as $index => $thisObject)
    {
        if($thisObject->$searchFor == $searchValue)
        {
            if($returnResult)
            {
                return $index;
            } else {
                return true;
            }
        }
    }
    return false;
}

// Usage
$obj1[0] = (object) array('catId' => 1, 'catName' => 'Name');
$obj1[1] = (object) array('catId' => 2, 'catName' => 'Name2');

$obj2[0] = (object) array('catId' => 1, 'catDesc' => 'Desc');
$obj2[1] = (object) array('catId' => 2, 'catDesc' => 'Desc2');

$obj_merged = object_merge($obj1,$obj2,'catId');
print_r($obj_merged);

?>