PHP recursive function to convert multidimensional array to xml - php

Question

I need to convert an array of indefinite depth to an xml string. I thought a recursive function would be better to this since the depth of the array is not unknown and is mostly of 3 levels. Here is the recursive function that I have come up so far
function array2xml($data, $key = ''){
if(!is_array($data)){
return "<".$key.">".$data."</".$key.">";
}
else{
foreach($data as $key => $value){
if(!is_array($value)){
return array2xml($value, $key);
}
else{
return "<".$key.">".array2xml($value)."</".$key.">";
}
}
}
This is the inital call but it returns only the first element in the array. For instance,
echo array2xml([
'students' => [
'names' => [
'frank' => '12',
'jason' => '13',
'beth' => '14'
],
'groups' => [
'yellow' => '165',
'green' => '98'
]
]
]);
Returns this output
<students><names><frank>12</frank></names></students>
Would appreciate it if someone could fix this recursive function so that the elements in the array are printed like this
<students>
<names>
<frankDiaz>12</frank>
<jasonVaaz>13</jason>
<bethDoe>14</beth>
</names>
<groups>
<yellow>165</yellow>
</groups>

Answer 1

The problem is that you you use return in your function's foreach loop and therefore break out of the loop/function prematurely...
Of course you don't factor in formatting etc. either; but that's a minor point.
Update notes
The function no longer uses echo to output the code instead it is returned as a string which can be assigned to a variable or printed itself
Added camelCase names as updated in the question
Code
$array = [
'students' => [
'names' => [
'frankDiaz' => '12',
'jasonVaaz' => '13',
'bethDoe' => '14'
],
'groups' => [
'yellow' => '165',
'green' => '98'
]
]
];
function array2xml($array, $tabs = 0) {
$xml = "";
foreach ($array as $key => $arr) {
if (is_array($arr)) {
$xml .= str_repeat(" ", $tabs) . "<$key>\n";
$xml .= array2xml($arr, $tabs + 1);
$xml .= str_repeat(" ", $tabs) . "</$key>\n";
} else {
$xml .= str_repeat(" ", $tabs) . "<$key>$arr</$key>\n";
}
}
return $xml;
}
echo array2xml($array);
Output:
<students>
<names>
<frankDiaz>12</frankDiaz>
<jasonVaaz>13</jasonVaaz>
<bethDoe>14</bethDoe>
</names>
<groups>
<yellow>165</yellow>
<green>98</green>
</groups>
</students>

Answer 2

A variation on #Steven's answer above, but creating actual xml with simplexml:
$xml_string = "";
function array2xml($array) {
global $xml_string;
foreach ($array as $key => $arr) {
if (is_array($arr)) {
$xml_string .= "<$key>\n";
array2xml($arr);
}
else {
$xml_string .= "<$key>". $arr;
}
$xml_string .= "</$key>\n";
}
}
array2xml($array);
$final = simplexml_load_string($xml_string);
echo $final->asXML();

Answer 3

the output still works as an XML, just not as easily human readable. To get things on new lines try inputting a carriage return line feed after every element.