Question

I need to convert a flat array where the array keys indicate the structure into a nested array where the parent element becomes element zero, i.e. in the example:

$education['x[1]'] = 'Georgia Tech';

It needs to be converted to:

$education[1][0] = 'Georgia Tech';

Here is an example input array:

$education = array(
  'x[1]'     => 'Georgia Tech',
  'x[1][1]'  => 'Mechanical Engineering',
  'x[1][2]'  => 'Computer Science',
  'x[2]'     => 'Agnes Scott',
  'x[2][1]'  => 'Religious History',
  'x[2][2]'  => 'Women\'s Studies',
  'x[3]'     => 'Georgia State',
  'x[3][1]'  => 'Business Administration',
);

And here is what the output should be:

$education => array(
  1 => array(
    0 => 'Georgia Tech',
    1 => array( 0 => 'Mechanical Engineering' ),
    2 => array( 0 => 'Computer Science' ),
  ),
  2 => array(
    0 => 'Agnes Scott',
    1 => array( 0 => 'Religious History' ),
    2 => array( 0 => 'Women\'s Studies' ),
  ),
  3 => array(
    0 => 'Georgia State',
    1 => array( 0 => 'Business Administration' ),
  ),
);

I’ve banged my head against the wall for hours and still can’t get it working. I think I’ve been looking at it too long. Thanks in advance.

P.S. It should be fully nestable, i.e. it should be able to convert a key that looks like this:

x[1][2][3][4][5][6] 

P.P.S. @Joseph Silber had a clever solution but unfortunately using eval() is not an option for this as it’s a WordPress plugin and the WordPress community is trying to stamp out the use of eval().

Answer 1

Here is some code to handle what you had originally proposed as output.

/**
 * Give it and array, and an array of parents, it will decent into the
 * nested arrays and set the value.
 */
function set_nested_value(array &$arr, array $ancestors, $value) {
  $current = &$arr;
  foreach ($ancestors as $key) {

    // To handle the original input, if an item is not an array, 
    // replace it with an array with the value as the first item.
    if (!is_array($current)) {
      $current = array( $current);
    }

    if (!array_key_exists($key, $current)) {
      $current[$key] = array();
    }
    $current = &$current[$key];
  }

  $current = $value;
}


$education = array(
  'x[1]'     => 'Georgia Tech',
  'x[1][1]'  => 'Mechanical Engineering',
  'x[1][2]'  => 'Computer Science',
  'x[2]'     => 'Agnes Scott',
  'x[2][1]'  => 'Religious History',
  'x[2][2]'  => 'Women\'s Studies',
  'x[3]'     => 'Georgia State',
  'x[3][1]'  => 'Business Administration',
);

$neweducation = array();

foreach ($education as $path => $value) {
  $ancestors = explode('][', substr($path, 2, -1));
  set_nested_value($neweducation, $ancestors, $value);
}

Basically, split your array keys into a nice array of ancestor keys, then use a nice function to decent into the $neweducation array using those parents, and set the value.

If you want the output that you have updated your post to have, add this in the foreach loop after the line with ‘explode’.

$ancestors[] = 0;