Generating data array from POST data with a param-map - php

Question

I have the following two things:
$_POST array with posted data
$params array with a path for each param in the desired data array.
$_POST = array(
'name' => 'Marcus',
'published' => 'Today',
'url' => 'http:://example.com',
'layout' => 'Some info...',
);
$params = array(
'name' => 'Invoice.name',
'published' => 'Page.published',
'url' => 'Page.Data.url',
'layout' => 'Page.Data.layout',
);
I would like to generate the $data array like the example below.
How can I do that?
Notice how the "paths" from the $params array are used to build the keys for the data array, filling it with the data from the $_POST array.
$data = array(
'User' => array(
'name' => 'Marcus',
),
'Page' => array(
'published' => 'Today',
'Data' => array(
'url' => 'http:://example.com',
'layout' => 'Some info...',
),
),
);

Answer 1

I would use referenced variables:
$post = array( // I renamed it
'name' => 'Marcus',
'published' => 'Today',
'url' => 'http:://example.com',
'layout' => 'Some info...',
);
$params = array(
'name' => 'Invoice.name',
'published' => 'Page.published',
'url' => 'Page.Data.url',
'layout' => 'Page.Data.layout',
);
echo '<pre>'; // just for var_dump()
foreach($post as $key=>$var){ // take each $_POST variable
$param=$params[$key]; // take the scheme fields
$path=explode('.',$param); // take scheme fields as an array
$temp=array(); // temporary array to manipulate
$temp_original=&$temp; // we need this the same as we're going to "forget" temp
foreach($path as $pathvar){ // take each scheme fields
$temp=&$temp[$pathvar]; // go deeper
}
$temp=$var; // that was the last one, insert it
var_dump($temp_original); // analize carefully the output
}
All you have to do now is to combine them all, they are not exactly what you want, but this will be easy.
And please note, that each $temp_original fields are pointing at $post variable data! (&string instead of string). You may want to clone it somehow.