How to replace reference to element with its value? - php

Question

in case of tl;dr: setting up array with references and then changing a copy of said array still preserves references and elements of all copies are changed at the same time. Need a workaround of replacing reference with the value that it points to.
I'm getting a complicated problem with using references in PHP Arrays :(
I have a flat array of unique elements with two properties: order and level.
Order represents element's order number from 1 to n in like table of contents way. Level represents which level "subchapter" the element is.
Example:
First brackets are element IDs which are random but unique:
[1][order:1][level:1]
----[7][order:2][level:2]
----[4][order:3][level:2]
---- ----[2][order:4][level:3]
[3][order:5][level:1]
[6][order:6][level:1]
----[5][order:7][level:2]
.
.
.
Remember, this is flat array of elements, above its just a visual representation.
Now I have tried to put them into array of form:
[1][children] => [
[7],
[4][children] => [
[2]
]
]
[3],
[6][children] => [
[5]
]
Which would represent a tree structure -ish..
I do this by first ordering them by order:
foreach($elements as $element){
$ordered_elements[$element['order']] = $element;
}
Then I shift each element under the correct parent:
foreach($ordered_elements as &$child){
if($child['level'] > 1){
$ordered_elements[$last_parent[$child['level']-1]]['children'][$child['content_id']] = &$child; // I think this is problematic line!!!
}
$last_parent[$child['level']] = $child['sort_order'];
}
Some of the elements stayed on root (first) level that shouldnt be there:
foreach($ordered_elements as &$child){
if($child['level'] == 1){
$ordered_elements[$child['content_id']] = $child;
}
unset($ordered_elements[$child['sort_order']]);
}
Now when this is done, the template array is ready. Now I start getting some data from query with element_id and user_id.
I want to set up a new table "users" that would have this previously made array for each user and I would be able to change its elements per user.
users[1]['elements'] = $ordered_elements;
users[2]['elements'] = $ordered_elements;
This function should return element by reference from user's own pool of elements, so we can change it directly into the users[x]['elements'][x]:
function &get_element_from_array(&$array, $searchValue){
$status = false;
foreach($array as $id => &$subtree) {
if ($id === $searchValue) {
return $subtree;
}
if (isset($subtree['children'])) {
$subsearch = &$this->get_element_from_array($subtree['children'], $searchValue);
if ($subsearch != false) {
return $subsearch;
}
}
}
return $status;
}
That means If i want to change element 5 from user 2 I need to call it like this:
$element = &get_element_from_array(users[2]['elements'], 5);
$element['visited'] = true;
This is where the problem occurs: I have just changed this element in user2 AND user1 array of elements.
I hope I didnt wrote this thing too long, was going for good explanation.