Assemble menu (tree of nodes), where only parent is known - php

Question

I have a menu navigation, like this:
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Subpage A
- Subpage B
- Subpage C
- Page 3
- Subpage D
- Subpage E
- Subsubpage I
- Subsubpage II
- Page 4
- Subpage F
But the CMS I use spits out a flat tree, only displaying the parent (not which level they're on). Like so:
$orig_tree = [
[
'db_id' => 1,
'name' => 'Page 1',
'parent' => 0
],
[
'db_id' => 2,
'name' => 'Page 2',
'parent' => 0
],
'db_id' => 3,
'name' => 'Subpage A',
'parent' => 2
],
[
'db_id' => 4,
'name' => 'Subpage B',
'parent' => 2
],
[
'db_id' => 5,
'name' => 'Subpage C',
'parent' => 2
],
[
'db_id' => 6,
'name' => 'Page 3',
'parent' => 0
],
[
'db_id' => 7,
'name' => 'Subpage D',
'parent' => 6
],
[
'db_id' => 8,
'name' => 'Subpage E',
'parent' => 6
],
[
'db_id' => 9,
'name' => 'Subsubpage I',
'parent' => 8
],
[
'db_id' => 10,
'name' => 'Subsubpage II',
'parent' => 8
],
[
'db_id' => 11,
'name' => 'Page 4',
'parent' => 0
],
[
'db_id' => 12,
'name' => 'Subpage F',
'parent' => 11
]
]
These information are stored in the database, so it has to be assembled in runtime (and it's really large), which means that I would like to make it as performance-friendly as possible.
So how do I put together this tree? ​
Assumptions
I'm pretty sure that the flat original tree always will be in order. So that the first entry always will be a root node (and not one of the children of another node). And that child-nodes will come just after the parent.
At the moment I have at most 3 levels. But it would be cool with a solution that worked with any number of levels.
Attempts
I'm making an object and making methods for all these operations. This is just to illustrate the solution in the fastest manner, to make the problem more digestible.
Attempt 1 - Recursion
Recursion would be the prettiest. I had a few go's at it, but I couldn't get it to work. Here is how far I made it:
__constructor( $orig_tree ){
$final_tree = [];
foreach( $orig_tree as $orig_node ){
$final_tree = $this->addNode( $orig_node, $final_tree );
}
}
private function addNode( $node, $final_tree ){
if( $node['parent'] == 'None' ){
$final_tree[] = $node;
} else {
// This is where I get stuck...
$this->findParentNode( $node, $final_tree ); // This is wrong
}
}
I'm not sure, if I should work it from the root to the leaves or the other way around. Or if the final tree should be passed to the recursive method or not.
Attempt 2 - Brute Force ugly
​First assemble all the branches, and then go through the branches and assemble the tree.
public static function makeMenu( $orig_tree ){
$branches = [];
$final_tree = [];
// Assemble branches
foreach( $orig_tree as $node ){
$branches[ $node->parent ][] = $node;
}
$final_tree = $branches[0]; // Set root level manually
unset( $branches[0] );
// Go through the root nodes and see if any branches have them as parents
foreach( $final_tree as &$root_node ){
if( array_key_exists( $root_node->db_id, $branches ) ){
$root_node->children = $branches[ $root_node->db_id ];
unset( $branches[ $root_node->db_id ] );
// Go through the newly added children and see if they have any branches, with them as parents
foreach( $root_node->children as &$child ){
if( array_key_exists( $child->db_id, $branches ) ){
$child->children = $branches[ $child->db_id ];
unset( $branches[ $child->db_id ] );
}
}
}
}
if( !empty( $branches ) ){
// Throw error.
echo 'Something has gone wrong!'; // All branches should have been removed with above code
die();
}
return $final_tree;
}
This works, but it's ugly.

Answer 1

<?php
function makeMenu( $orig_tree ){
$parent_set = [];
$result = [];
foreach($orig_tree as $node){
$node['children'] = [];
if($node['parent'] == 0){
$result[] = $node;
$parent_set[$node['db_id']] = &$result[count($result) - 1];
}else{
$parent = &$parent_set[$node['parent']];
$parent['children'][] = $node;
$parent_set[$node['db_id']] = &$parent['children'][count($parent['children']) - 1];
}
}
return $result;
}
In the above code, as you mentioned parent entries will always come before child entries
We maintain a variable $result where we just add parent level 0 nodes.
Important part is the $parent_set where we store the addresses of nodes present in $result with the help of & address specifier.
Now, whenever we want to add any new node to $result, we fetch it's parent node from $parent_set and add current node in its children array.
Once done, we again update current node's address in $result with the help of parent's children array entry.