Accessing a multidimensional array with a string in array syntax

Question

I have an array named $row like this:

[multifield] => Array
(
    [pipelines_users] => Array
    (
        [users_id] => Array
        (
            [0] => 327
            [1] => 123
        )
    )
)

and I want to access the users_id array but only have the string multifield[pipelines_users][users_id]

But echoing $row[$string] uses the whole string as the key and doesn't parse the array notation of the square brackets.

I've tried: $row{$string} and several other incorrect syntax with no luck.

The string array notation will have variable keys so I can't hard code here.

If you don’t want to use eval, then you will have to do this using references - split the string into the sinlge keys, get the reference to the first level element via its key, and then use that reference to get the next level element, etc. — C3roe
– C3roe, Commented Oct 11, 2013 at 14:49
You are supposed to split the whole string into multiple substring if you want to access the single elements of the array.. — briosheje
– briosheje, Commented Oct 11, 2013 at 14:52

MDEV · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-11 15:02:25Z

2

One way of achieving this without eval is to split the string up and loop through the keys, checking their existence, gradually narrowing down the array.

$row = array("multifield" => Array
(
    "pipelines_users" => Array
    (
        "users_id" => Array
        (
            0 => 327
            ,1 => 123
        )
    )
));
$str = 'multifield[pipelines_users][users_id]';
$parts = preg_split('#[[\]]+#',$str);//Convert string into array of keys: ('multifield','pipelines_users','users_id','')
$ret = $row;
foreach($parts as $key)
{
    if(isset($ret[$key])) $ret = $ret[$key];//When the key is found, we push $ret further down the array, for the next key search
}
var_dump($ret); //array(2) { [0]=> int(327) [1]=> int(123) }

edited Oct 11, 2013 at 15:02

answered Oct 11, 2013 at 14:55

MDEV

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3 Comments

MDEV Over a year ago

@user2173785 No worries, glad to have helped.

user2173785 Over a year ago

sorry, actually I will have multiple arrays using these keys so need to access the array with all the keys so this won't work for me.

MDEV Over a year ago

@user2173785 How do you mean? What's the issue? Do you need a function so you can apply the search to multiple arrays?

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