Properly extracting an embedded array from another array - php

Question

I am trying to extract an array embedded in another array using the standard foreach loop, the problem is it keep returning unwanted data.
Array
Array
(
[id] => 2035443879
[status] => Unshipped
[sku] => 0340024275-UsedGood
[isbn] => 0340024275
[condition] => Used
[number_of_items] => 1
[title] => Linnets and Valerians (Knight Books)
[purchase_date] => 1361536149
[0] => Array
(
[status] => Shipped
[title] => Linnets and Valerians (Knight Books)
[date] => 1361491200
)
)
Print function
function mapStatus($orders){
foreach($orders as $order){
echo "<pre>";
print_r($order);
echo "</pre>";
foreach(array_unique($order) as $item){
echo "-".$item["status"]."-";
}
}
}
Outcome
-2--U--0--0--U--1--W--L--H--1--Shipped-
As you can see from my outcome what was printed is not exactly what I expected, it seems that I am printing the first character of every index in the array and not just the actual array I want.
I'm aware that I can use a is_array() function to determine if what I am printing is coming from an array object but I would like to know if there is proper way to do what I want?

Answer 1

for ($i = 0; $i < $order['number_of_items']; $i++) {
echo "-".$order[$i]["status"]."-";
}
However, I recommend a different data structure. Instead of having the items as indexed elements within the order array, you should have $order['items'], which points to an array. Then you can use:
foreach ($order['items'] as $item)
Then you don't need $order['number_of_items'], you can just use count($order['items']).