PHP — How to determine number of parents of a child array? - php

Question

I'm not so strong with arrays but I need to determine how to count the number of parents a child array has in order to determine the indenting to display it as an option in a SELECT.
So, if I have this array:
array(
'World'=>array(
'North America'=>array(
'Canada'=>array(
'City'=>'Toronto'
)
)
)
);
How would I go about determining how many parents 'City' has in order to translate that into the number of spaces I want to use as an indent?
Thanks for any help.
EDIT: Let's see if I can explain myself better:
I have this code I'm using to build the OPTIONS list for a SELECT:
function toOptions($array) {
foreach ($array as $key=>$value) {
$html .= "<option value=\"" . $key . "\" >";
$html .= $value['title'];
$html .= "</option>";
if (array_key_exists('children', $value)) {
$html .= toOptions($value['children']);
}
}
return $html;
}
print toOptions($list);
So, I'm trying to determine how to get the number of parents in order to add spaces before the title in this line:
$html .= $value['title'];
Like:
$html .= " " . $value['title'];
But, I'm not sure how to figure out how many spaces to add.
Hopefully this is more clear.
Thanks for any help so far.

Answer 1

$x = array(
'World'=>array(
'North America'=>array(
'Canada'=>array(
'City'=>'Toronto'
)
)
)
);
// This function do something with the key you've found in the array
function visit($name, $depth)
{
echo $name . ' has ' . $depth . ' parents.';
}
// This function visits all the contents aff $array
function find_recursive($array, $depth = 0)
{
if (is_array($array)) {
foreach ($array as $k => $value) {
visit($k, $depth + 1);
find_recursive($array, $depth + 1);
}
}
}
For visiting:
find_recursive($x);

Answer 2

Well. Off the top what you are dealing with is a multi dimensional array.
You could run a count w/ foreach on each level of the array, and use the count number returned +1 for each level the foreach loops through.
I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I am trying to see exactly what it is you are trying to achieve.

Answer 3

As you are already using a recursive function to display that data, you can just extend your function. There is no need to traverse the array more often than one time:
function getWhitespaces($count) {
$result = '';
while($count--) {
$result .= '$nbsp;';
}
return $result;
}
function toOptions($array, $level=0) {
foreach ($array as $key=>$value) {
$html .= "<option value=\"" . $key . "\" >";
$html .= getWhitespaces($level) + $value['title'];
$html .= "</option>";
if (array_key_exists('children', $value)) {
$html .= toOptions($value['children'], $level + 1);
}
}
return $html;
}
print toOptions($list);

Answer 4

Try the following.. Your solution screams for recursion in my mind. Its a bit ugly but it seems to work
$totraverse = array(
'Moon' => array(
'Dark Side' => "Death Valley"
),
'Halley Commet' => "Solar System",
'World' => array(
'North America' => array(
'Canada' => array(
'City' => 'Toronto'
)
), 'South America' => array(
'Argentina' => array(
'City' => 'Toronto'
)
)
)
);
function traverse($totraverse_, $path="", $count=0) {
global $array;
// echo count($totraverse_) . " count\n";
if (!is_array($totraverse_)) {
echo "returning $path and $key\n";
return array($path, $count);
} else {
foreach ($totraverse_ as $key => $val) {
echo "assting $path and $key\n";
$result = traverse($val, $path . "/" . $key, $count + 1);
if($result){
$array[]=$result;
}
}
}
echo false;
}
$array = array();
traverse($totraverse);
foreach($array as $item){
echo "{$item[0]}--->{$item[1]}\n";
}