PHP recursive array copy

Question

I have a multidimensional array of arrays (source below), where my keys and values are arbitrary strings. I want to create a new array (desired below), where the hierarchy stays the same, but every KEY is restructured into its own array, with the key itself becoming a 'title' value, and any subarrays are continued under 'children'.

How can I accomplish this using a recursive function that takes &$source and &$destination arrays, and populates the destination array accordingly?

Source Array:

Array (
    [Alpha] => Array (
        [Red] => one
        [Blue] => two
    )
    [Bravo] => Array (
        [Blue] => three
    )
)

Desired Array:

Array (
    [0] => Array (
        [title] => Alpha
        [children] => Array (
                    [0] Array([title] => Red, [children]= > false)
                    [1] Array([title] => Blue, [children]= > false)
        )
    )
    [1] => Array (
        [title] => Bravo
                    [0] Array([title] => Blue, [children]= > false)
        )
    )
)

Note: I don't care about the final nodes/leafs in my new array.

Benjamin Crouzier · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-05 21:09:10Z

3

You can do te conversion without passing a reference to the destination array.

function convert_array($from){
    if(!is_array($from)){
        return false;
    }
    $to = array();
    foreach($from as $k=>$v){
        $to[] = array(
            'title' => $k,
            'children' => convert_array($v)
        );
    }
    return $to;
}

Codepad example

edited Apr 5, 2012 at 21:09

Benjamin Crouzier

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answered Apr 5, 2012 at 20:50

miguel_ibero

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2 Comments

lioman Over a year ago

Thanks, works great. BTW what is the significance of using $to[] versus just $to in the foreach? Only $to[] seems to work, but $to is still ok syntax-wise.

miguel_ibero Over a year ago

Using $to[] you are appending an element to the array (the same as using array_push), using $to you are overwriting the array each time.

Sam · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-08 17:36:59Z

1

I have programmed array recursively.

$a = array(
    'Alpha' => array('Red' => 'one', 'Blue' => 'two'),
    'Bravo' => array('Blue' => 'three'));


function copyarray($datas){
    $arr = array();

            if(is_array($datas)){
                foreach($datas as $key => $val){
                    if(is_array($val)){
                    $arr[$key] = copyarray($val);
                    }else
                    $arr[$key]=$val;
                }
            }
            return $arr;
}

echo "<pre>";print_r(copyarray($a));

answered Nov 8, 2019 at 17:36

Sam

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