Accessing nested arrays in PHP without many loops

Question

Consider the following:

$dropdown = array (
    "unitofmeasure" => array (
        "m"     => "meters",
        "ft"    => "feet"
    ),
    "facing_direction" => array (
        "0"     => array ("West","North-West","North","North-East","East","South-East"),
        "1"     => array("South","South-West")
    )
    .... 
)

Assume there are n number of sub arrays, not just the two shown above.

Iteration solution:

foreach($dropdown as $key => $val) {
    foreach($val as $k => $v) { 
        foreach($v as $id => $value) {
           //manipulate values here
        }
    }
}

My question is:

is there not a more elegant solution available in PHP?
for example something like foreach($dropdown->children()->children() ...)

_{I know there are a few semi-similar questions on SO but they're slightly different and the answers are mediocre.}

Andrei · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-15 14:11:20Z

1

Yes, I personally tend to use array_walk_recursive with a closure(if you're using PHP above 5.3).

You can, obviously, also use recursion if you like getting your hands dirty.

I suppose an example is in order:

$array = [ 0 => [0 => [ 0 => 1 ...]]];

$manipulated_array = [];

array_walk_recursive($array, function($value) use (&$manipulated_array)
{
  // do whatever you wish here
});

answered Jul 15, 2015 at 14:11

Andrei

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2 Comments

Orangepill Over a year ago

RecursiveArrayIterator would also be an option.

Andrei Over a year ago

Good call, forgot about that one. Another option would be RecursiveIteratorIterator - which has a silly name.

Marc B · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-15 14:12:10Z

1

foreach() just expects an array, so if you only need to iterate ONE of those deeply nested arrays, then you can quite easily have

foreach($arr['level1']['level2'][...]['levelGazillion'] as ...)

answered Jul 15, 2015 at 14:12

Marc B

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Comments

hair raisin · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-15 14:26:11Z

0

I tend to use recursion in these situations:

function modify_array(&$arr)
{
    if (is_array(arr)) {
        foreach($arr as &$val) {
            modify_array($val);
        }
    } else {
        modify_value($arr);
    }
}

where modify_value(&$val) is whatever you want to do to each non-array child at any arbitrary depth

answered Jul 15, 2015 at 14:26

hair raisin

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