Simplify a multidimensional array in PHP - php

Question

I've received and XML, converted it into an array for usage.
The XML comes in unpredictable multi dimension when I convert it into array.
Had been looking around but could not find a suitable solution.
An alternative is to simplify the converted array.
I've converted an XML to array in PHP, and the result looked like this:
Array
(
[GetMLCBRes] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[Ord] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[OrdId] => Array
(
[0] => DP Order ID
)
)
)
[ReqInf] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[ReqDat] => Array
(
[0] => Date of Request
)
)
)
[Res] => Array
(
[0] => PDF Report
)
)
)
)
May I know how to drop the index like [0] but remain the assoc keys like [Ord], [OrdId], [ReqInf] and [Res], etc.
How to convert it to become like this?
Array
(
[GetMLCBRes] => Array
(
[Ord] => Array
(
[OrdId] => DP Order ID
)
[ReqInf] => Array
(
[ReqDat] => Date of Request
)
[Res] => PDF Report
)
)

Answer 1

it works but if you change your structure maybe it won't. It's not optimized too :)
$input = Array(
'GetMLCBRes' => Array(Array(
'Ord' => Array(Array(
'OrdId' => Array('DP Order ID')
)),
'ReqInf' => Array(Array(
'ReqDat' => Array('Date of Request')
)),
'Res' => Array('PDF Report')
))
);
foreach($input as &$in){
$sub = $in[0];
foreach($sub as $key => &$value){
$sub2 = $value[0];
if(!is_array($sub2)){
$sub[$key] = $sub2;
continue;
}
$final2 = array();
foreach($sub2 as $key2 => $final)
$final2[$key2] = $final[0];
$sub[$key] = $final2;
}
$in = $sub;
}
var_dump($input);
You can test it here : http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/a6770c7649d7d277aa1dc3544093cc87bed0951d

Answer 2

This should work as expected :
function recursive_skip(array $ary) {
foreach($ary as $k => &$v) {
if (is_array($v)) {
// Skip it
$v = $v[0];
}
if (is_array($v)) {
// If current array item is an array itself, recursively call the function on it
$v = recursive_skip($v);
}
}
// Return updated array to calling context
return $ary;
}
$source = Array(
'GetMLCBRes' => Array(Array(
'Ord' => Array(Array(
'OrdId' => Array('DP Order ID')
)),
'ReqInf' => Array(Array(
'ReqDat' => Array('Date of Request')
)),
'Res' => Array('PDF Report')
))
);
$dest = recursive_skip($source);
var_dump($dest);
A few caveats : the function will only skip one array level each time (but could be adapted to handle more if needed) and might come with a significant performance cost if your source array is huge since it's recursive (O(n)), it just walks through the whole array tree.