Question

Here is my precode…

$keys = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd');
$number = 10;

And here is my code…

eval('$array[\''.implode('\'][\'',$keys).'\'] = $number;');

Using this, I get the following result…

Array (
    [a] => Array
        (
            [b] => Array
                (
                    [c] => Array
                        (
                            [d] => 10
                        )
                )
        )
)

Now, the problem is that this is the exact result I want, but I don’t want to use eval().

As input to my code, I have a list of keys and a number. The number should be set to the value of the keys array being used to generate child-based keys for a certain array $array.

Is there a different way that I can achieve this? I don’t want to overwrite the keys/numbers with new values as the code works – eval() preserves this already, so my new code should do the same.

Answer 1

Here is a full code example showing how it would work. Whats important is that you use a reference to the array so you can modify it:

<?php
    $keys = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'); 
    $number = 10;

    $org_array = array(
        "a" => "string",
        "z" => array( "k" => false)
      );

    function write_to_array(&$array, $keys, $number){
      $key = array_shift($keys);
      if(!is_array($array[$key])) $array[$key] = array();
      if(!empty($keys)){
        write_to_array($array[$key], $keys, $number);
      } else {
        $array[$key] = $number;
      }
    }

    write_to_array($org_array, $keys, $number);

    print_r($org_array);
?>