Issue with PHP recursive function - php

Question

I need to traverse the following type of structures:
P
/ | \
E1 E2 E3 .....
/ \ / \ |
V1 V2 V1 V2 V3 .....
| | | | / \
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 .....
In order to form an associative array with the following elements:
V1(key) = [T1(E1), T3(E2), ...]
V2(key) = [T2(E1), T4(E2), ...]
V3(key) = [T5(E3), T6(E3), ...]
.....
Now here comes the tricky part: the structure is actually simplified. I don't know beforehand how many E-level nodes I'll actually need to deal with (3 in the drawing), or how many V-level nodes each of them has (but at least 1 will be there), and furthermore, each V-level node may also have multiple T-nodes.
I tried using a recursion function to do this (in PHP). I'll simplify the code because it has weird methods regarding some objects that don't really matter to the discussion. My current attempt results in:
V1(key) = [T1(E1)]
V2(key) = [T2(E1)]
That I think means that the traversal is only occurring going down the first E-level "branch".
This is my code:
$result = [];
$traverser = function($node) use (&$traverser, &$result) {
$children = $node->getChildrenArray();
foreach($children as $key=>$child){
if ($child->nodeType() == 'v_node') {
$v_node_key = $child->name;
$t_nodes = $child->getChildrenArray();
if ( !array_key_exists($v_node_key, $results) ){
$results[$v_node_key] = [];
}
foreach($t_nodes as $keyt=>$t_node) {
$info_array = $t_node->toArray();
array_push($results[$v_node_key], $info_array);
}
} else if ($child->nodeType() == 'e_node') {
// keep digging
return $traverser($child);
}
}
};
$traverser($p_node);
I think the problem is that once I call the $traverser function within the foreach it won't come back and resume from the previous state.
Can anyone advise on how I should be tackling this to get the result I placed above?

Answer 1

Well, this is a bit awkward and I'm still not entirely sure if this is the right motive, but I solved this by removing the return in my code.
I thought that the return would allow me to exit the nested function call, but rather I think it jumped out of the first function call (the $traverser($p_node); line).
Even so, by changing the return $traverser($child); line to $traverser($child); it did what it had to do.
Hope this helps anyone!

Answer 2

I not show about what error you got but i suggest you to change you function to be this
function traverser($results, $node) {
$children = $node->getChildrenArray();
foreach($children as $key=>$child){
if ($child->nodeType() == 'v_node') {
$v_node_key = $child->name;
$t_nodes = $child->getChildrenArray();
if ( !array_key_exists($v_node_key, $results) ){
$results[$v_node_key] = [];
}
foreach($t_nodes as $keyt=>$t_node) {
$info_array = $t_node->toArray();
array_push($results[$v_node_key], $info_array);
}
} else if ($child->nodeType() == 'e_node') {
// keep digging
return traverser($child);
}
}
return $results;
}
Hope this help

Answer 3

Well, since you know that you'll have P->E->V->T-nodes, you could simply go for multiple foreach-loops, like this
foreach($p_node->getChildren() as $e_node) {
$e_node_key = $e_node->name;
foreach($e_node->getChildren() as $v_node) {
$v_node_key = $v_node->name;
foreach($v_node->getChildren() as $t_node) {
$t_node_key = $t_node->name;
// do whatever it needs to array_push to results
}
}
}