Creating an array from a string issue - php

Question

I have a function that creates a multi-dimensional array from a string. Here's how the output looks like for each string:
Strings:
app.name.version
app.vendor
NOTE: These are strings that are being retrieved from a database
Output:
['app']['name']['version']
['app']['vendor']
and I assign them values accordingly. The problem arises when I include numbers in the string representing an index number of a sub array. Here's an example:
shifts.breaks.unpaid.0.description
shifts.breaks.unpaid.0.duration
shifts.breaks.unpaid.1.description
shifts.breaks.unpaid.1.duration
with output:
Array
(
[unpaid] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[description] => Lunch
)
[1] => Array
(
[duration] => 30
)
[3] => Array
(
[description] => Lunch 2
)
[4] => Array
(
[duration] => 30
)
)
)
Where it should normally look like:
Array
(
[unpaid] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[description] => Lunch
[duration] => 30
)
[1] => Array
(
[description] => Lunch 2
[duration] => 30
)
)
)
The only thing that remedies this is if I replace the numbers with anything but numerical values like the following:
shifts.breaks.unpaid.b0.description
shifts.breaks.unpaid.b0.duration
shifts.breaks.unpaid.b1.description
shifts.breaks.unpaid.b1.duration
Array
(
[unpaid] => Array
(
[b0] => Array
(
[description] => Lunch
[duration] => 30
)
[b1] => Array
(
[description] => Lunch 2
[duration] => 30
)
)
)
Here's the function that creates the arrays:
function toArray($keys, $value){
$array = array();
$ref = &$array;
while(count($keys) > 0){
$n = array_shift($keys);
if(!is_array($ref))
$ref = array();
$ref = &$ref[$n];
}
$ref = $value;
return $array;
}
Where $keys contains $keys = explode('.', "my.testing.string"); and here's the example I've been working with:
$strings = array (
"app.names.0.first"=> "Samuel",
"app.names.0.last"=> "Smith",
"app.names.1.first" => "Mary",
"app.names.2.last" =>"Kubik"
);
$list = array();
foreach($strings as $key => $name) {
$list[] = (toArray(explode('.', $key),$name));
}
print_r(call_user_func_array('array_merge_recursive', $list));
At this point, I'm not too sure if this has something to do with array_merge_recursive. Any help in correcting this would be great!

Answer 1

Well one solution I found was re-writing a new array_merge_recursive function without overwriting numeric keys.
function array_merge_recursive_new() {
$arrays = func_get_args();
$base = array_shift($arrays);
foreach ($arrays as $array) {
reset($base); //important
while (list($key, $value) = #each($array)) {
if (is_array($value) && #is_array($base[$key])) {
$base[$key] = array_merge_recursive_new($base[$key], $value);
} else {
$base[$key] = $value;
}
}
}
return $base;
}
Thanks to a user on php.net. This will produce the correct output when keys are numeric.