Optimise search in JSON with strings in ascending order - php

Question

I have this JSON here
At the root, there is a command(property) as wp which has 39 sub-commands(sub-properties) as cache, cap, checksum...etc, where each has its own subcommands and this goes up to 4 levels
The better part is that all subcommands are arranged in ascending order, i.e.; strings are arranged in ascending order.
I want to traverse and search whether a command like wp site create or wp term delete exists in the JSON tree. I don't want to iterate using a for loop due to huge time complexity. It's been too long since I've completed my engineering and if my memory serves correctly, a tree structure would greatly improvise the search time.
Can anyone point me to the right direction on achieving this? I'm using PHP as my language.

Answer 1

here's a binary search solution, you'll need to put your json into a file...
NOTE: because wp isn't in a subcommands array you can't search for it
<?php
function binarySearch(&$myArray, $search, $start, $end)
{
$middle = ($start + $end) >> 1; // divide by 2
if ($middle >= $start) {
if ($search > $myArray[$middle]['name']) { // $search must be in top half of array
$result = binarySearch($myArray, $search, $middle + 1, $end);
} elseif ($search < $myArray[$middle]['name']) { // $search must be in bottom half of array
$result = binarySearch($myArray, $search, $start, $middle - 1);
} else { // $search is here
$result = $middle;
}
} else {
$result = false; // $search not found
}
return $result;
}
function findCommand($arrFound, $strFind)
{
$arrFind = explode(' ', $strFind);
while ($arrFound !== false and list($key, $strCommand) = each($arrFind)) {
$arrSearch = $arrFound['subcommands'];
if (($key = binarySearch($arrSearch, $strCommand, 0, count($arrSearch) - 1)) === false) {
$arrFound = false;
} else {
$arrFound = $arrSearch[$key];
}
}
return $arrFound;
}
// get json from file and convert it to an array
$arrJson = json_decode(file_get_contents('items.json'), true);
$arrCommand = findCommand($arrJson, 'site create');
var_dump($arrCommand);
$arrCommand = findCommand($arrJson, 'term delete');
var_dump($arrCommand);

Answer 2

though using native functions array_search() and array_column() will probably be quicker
<?php
function findCommand($arrFound, $strFind)
{
$arrFind = explode(' ', $strFind);
while ($arrFound !== false and list($key, $strCommand) = each($arrFind)) {
$arrSearch = $arrFound['subcommands'];
if (($key = array_search($strCommand, array_column($arrSearch, 'name'))) === false) {
$arrFound = false;
} else {
$arrFound = $arrSearch[$key];
}
}
return $arrFound;
}
// get json from file and convert it to an array
$arrJson = json_decode(file_get_contents('items.json'), true);
$arrCommand = findCommand($arrJson, 'site create');
var_dump($arrCommand);
$arrCommand = findCommand($arrJson, 'term delete');
var_dump($arrCommand);