Know the element level in multidimensional array - php

Question

Well, I am here again dealing with arrays in php. I need your hand to guide me in the right direction. Suppose the following array:
-fruits
--green
---limon
---mango
--red
---apple
-cars
--ferrari
---enzo
----blue
----black
---318
--lamborg
---spider
---gallardo
----gallado-96
-----blue
-----red
-----gallado-98
The - (hyphen) symbol only illustrates the deep level.
Well, I need to build another array (or whatever), because it should be printed as an HTML select as below:
-fruits
--green
---limon
---mango
--red
---apple
-cars
--ferrari
---enzo
----blue
----black
---318
--lamborg
---spider
---gallardo
----gallado-96
-----blue
-----red
-----gallado-98
Looks that for each level element, it should add a space, or hyphen to determinate that it belongs to a particular parent.
EDIT
The have provide an answer provideng my final code. The html select element will display each level as string (repeating the "-" at the begging of the text instead multi-level elements.

Answer 1

Here's a simple recursive function to build a select dropdown given an array. Unfortunately I'm not able to test it, but let me know if it works. Usage would be as follows:
function generateDropdown($array, $level = 1)
{
if ($level == 1)
{
$menu = '<select>';
}
foreach ($array as $a)
{
if (is_array($a))
{
$menu .= generateDropdown($a, $level+1);
}
else
{
$menu .= '<option>'.str_pad('',$level,'-').$a.'</option>'."\n";
}
}
if ($level == 1)
{
$menu = '</select>';
}
return $menu;
}

Answer 2

OK, I got it with the help of #jmgardhn2.
The data
This is my array:
$temp = array(
array(
'name' => 'fruits',
'sons' => array(
array(
'name' => 'green',
'sons' => array(
array(
'name' => 'mango'
),
array(
'name' => 'banana',
)
)
)
)
),
array(
'name' => 'cars',
'sons' => array(
array(
'name' => 'italy',
'sons' => array(
array(
'name' => 'ferrari',
'sons' => array(
array(
'name' => 'red'
),
array(
'name' => 'black'
),
)
),
array(
'name' => 'fiat',
)
)
),
array(
'name' => 'germany',
'sons' => array(
array(
'name' => 'bmw',
)
)
),
)
)
);
Recursive function
Now, the following function will provide an array with items like [level] => [name]:
function createSelect($tree, $items, $level)
{
foreach ($tree as $key)
{
if (is_array($key))
{
$items = createSelect($key, $items, $level + 1);
}
else
{
$items[] = array('level' => $level, 'text' => $key);
}
}
return $items;
}
Calling the funcion
Now, call the function as below:
$items = createSelect($temp, array(), 0);
Output
If you iterate the final $items array it will look like:
1fruits
2green
3mango
3banana
1cars
2italy
3ferrari
4red
4black
3fiat
2germany
3bmw