Question

So My problem is:

• I want to create nested array from string as reference.
  
• My String is "res[0]['links'][0]"
  
• So I want to create array $res['0']['links']['0']
  

I tried:

$result = "res[0]['links'][0]";
$$result = array("id"=>'1',"class"=>'3');
$result = "res[0]['links'][1]";
$$result = array("id"=>'3',"class"=>'9');

when print_r($res)
I see:

<b>Notice</b>:  Undefined variable: res in <b>/home/fanbase/domains/fanbase.sportbase.pl/public_html/index.php</b> on line <b>45</b>

I need to see:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [links] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 1
                            [class] => 3
                        )

                )

        )
    [1] => Array
        (
            [links] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 3
                            [class] => 9
                        )

                )

        )

)

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

So you have a description of an array structure, and something to fill it with. That’s doable with something like:

function array_create(&$target, $desc, $fill) {

    preg_match_all("/[^\[\]']+/", $desc, $uu);
       // unoptimized, always uses strings

    foreach ($uu[0] as $sub) {
        if (! isset($target[$sub])) {
             $target[$sub] = array();
        }
        $target = & $target[$sub];
    }
    $target = $fill;
}

array_create( $res, "[0]['links'][0]", array("id"=>'1',"class"=>'3') );
array_create( $res, "[0]['links'][1]", array("id"=>'3',"class"=>'9') );

Note how the array name itself is not part of the structure descriptor. But you could theoretically keep it. Instead call the array_create() function with a $tmp variable, and afterwards extract() it to achieve the desired effect:

array_create($tmp, "res[0][links][0]", array(1,2,3,4,5));
extract($tmp);

Another lazy solution would be to use str_parse after a loop combining the array description with the data array as URL-encoded string.