Unset multidimensional array where indexis presented as string - php

Question

I've got an array that looks like this:
'coilovers' =>
'strut_and_individual_components' =>
'complete_strut' =>
0 =>
array (size=5)
'achse' => string 'Oś tylnia' (length=10)
'position' => string 'Prawo' (length=5)
'material' => string 'Stal' (length=4)
'variante' => string 'Wariant 3' (length=9)
'img' => string 'gewindefahrwerk_federbein_komplett_level3.png'
'hls_components' =>
'assembly_pump_unit' =>
0 =>
'achse' => string 'Assembly pump unit' (length=18)
'img' => string 'hls_komponenten_baugruppe_pumpeneinheit_level3.png'
Now I'm getting string parameter that looki for example like : [coilovers][strut_and_individual_components][complete_strut][0]
And now I want to to unset whole branch of that array based on that parameter. So far I've accomplished how to read value but that parameter and it looks like.
private function str_index_array(&$arr, $indexes) {
$arr_indexes = explode('][',trim($indexes,'[]'));
$session_array = &$arr;
foreach($arr_indexes as $index) {
$session_array = &$session_array[$index];
}
}
But I'm stuck now, I need to check if that element is last element in array and in previous element is that previous element is empty if its empty unset whole brunch. Any ideas?

Answer 1

I'm sure some PHP/array/reference expert can come up with better ways of doing this, but here is one bug-ugly solution. I've set up a loop to obtain a reference to the last but second level index, and test and delete the sub-indexes from there. Note that there is no error-checking to test if the indexes actually exist before using them.
<?php
$a = array (
'coilovers' => array (
'strut_and_individual_components' => array (
'complete_strut' => array (
0 => array (
'achse' => 'Os tylnia',
'position' => 'Prawo',
'material' => 'Stal',
'variante' => 'Wariant 3',
'img' => 'gewindefahrwerk_federbein_komplett_level3.png'
)
)
)
),
'hls_components' => array (
'assembly_pump_unit' => array (
0 => array (
'achse' => 'Assembly pump unit',
'img' => 'hls_komponenten_baugruppe_pumpeneinheit_level3.png'
)
)
)
);
function delete_index (&$arr, $indexes) {
$arr_indexes = explode('][',trim($indexes,'[]'));
for ($i = 0; $i < count($arr_indexes) - 2; $i++) {
$arr = &$arr[$arr_indexes[$i]];
}
$ix1 = $arr_indexes[$i];
$ix2 = $arr_indexes[$i+1];
unset ($arr[$ix1][$ix2]);
if (empty ($arr[$ix1]))
unset ($arr[$ix1]);
}
print_r ($a);
delete_index ($a, '[coilovers][strut_and_individual_components][complete_strut][0]');
print_r ($a);