Turn string into multi-dimensional array equivalent

Question

I'm trying to parse a string from a URL and convert it into a PHP array, but so far I haven't been able to get it to work correctly. The string contains comma separated values which are then grouped by periods, for example:

course.id,course.title,course.author,course.duration,course.trailer.video_key,course.trailer.duration,course.lessons.id,course.lessons.title,track.id,track.title,track.caption.srt,track.caption.vtt,track.caption.text

The Array equivalent to this string would be:

PHP:

$array = [
    'course' => [
        'id',
        'title',
        'author',
        'duration',
        'trailer' => [
            'video_key',
            'duration'
        ],
        'lessons' => [
            'id',
            'title'
        ]
    ],
    'track' => [
        'id',
        'title',
        'caption' => [
            'srt',
            'vtt',
            'text'
        ]
    ]
];

My current solution is this:

PHP:

$string = 'course.id,course.title,course.author,course.duration,course.trailer.video_key,course.trailer.duration,course.lessons.id,course.lessons.title,track.id,track.title,track.caption.srt,track.caption.vtt,track.caption.text';
$parameters = explode( ',', $string );

$array = array();
$inset = array();

foreach ( $parameters as $parameter ) {

    $segments = explode( '.', $parameter );

    if ( ! array_key_exists( $segments[0], $inset ) ) {
        $array[ $segments[0] ] = array();
        $inset[ $segments[0] ] = true;
    }

    $array[ $segments[0] ] = array_merge( $array[ $segments[0] ], addSegment( $segments, 1 ) );

}

function addSegment( $segments, $counter ) {

    $results = array();

    if ( end( $segments ) == $segments[ $counter ] ) {
        return array( $segments[ $counter ] => null );
    }

    $results[ $segments[ $counter ] ] = addSegment( $segments, $counter + 1 );

    return $results;

}

This somewhat works, however; it fails with simpler string like this one course,track,lessons

I think this calls for recursion but I'm not good at writing this so I'm hoping someone has already done this and can help me.

Thank you.

dWinder · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-07 14:01:31Z

1

You can achieve this without recursion - just double loop and use of &:

$arr = explode(",", "course.id,course.title,course.author,course.duration,course.trailer.video_key,course.trailer.duration,course.lessons.id,course.lessons.title,track.id,track.title,track.caption.srt,track.caption.vtt,track.caption.text");
foreach($arr as $e) {
    $e = explode(".", $e);
    $obj = &$res; //set the current place root
    while(count($e) > 1) { // last element will be add as value
        $key = array_shift($e);
        if (!isset($obj[$key]))
            $obj[$key] = [];
        $obj = &$obj[$key]; //reset the current place
    }
    $obj[] = array_shift($e); // add the last as value to current place
}

$res will contain your desire output

answered Mar 7, 2019 at 14:01

dWinder

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5 Comments

Yojance Over a year ago

Hello @dWinder, thank you for solution, it's close but the array is not in the format I need it to be. It's returning this gist.github.com/yojance/ad2ba51b1714bbb93eda4ce31e2ffbf5

dWinder Over a year ago

@Yojance And what is the different? the only different I see is integer keys to all the elements you had in the array without keys so I assign integer as default keys - what is the expected behavior?

dWinder Over a year ago

I also copied your $array and checked echo ($res === $array); which output TRUE

Yojance Over a year ago

I guess I could do a combination of array_key_exists() or in_array to check for values with your current solution.

dWinder Over a year ago

Of course you can. Moreover, my claim is you needed to use it for any solution as you expected output amd mine are the same

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