Getting Data From Multi-level Array

Jack Smith picture Jack Smith · Oct 29, 2011 · Viewed 7.3k times · Source

Question below.

This is the solution I came up with based on Pixeler's answer.

<?php
$i = 0;
foreach ($array as $k1 => $v1) {
        if (is_array($v1)) {
            echo $k1."<br />";
                foreach ($v1 as $k2 => $v2) {
                    echo "--".$k2."<br />----".$v2."<br />";
                }
            $i++;
        }
        echo "<br /<br />";
}
?>

<?php
$array = array( "Apples" => array("Red" => "$2.95", "Green" => "$2.45"),
                "Oranges" => array("Navel" => "$4.95"),
                "Grapes" => array("Purple" => "$3.75", "Green" => "$3.25")
              );
?>

Is it possible to take what's above and get the text for each value by calling a number? How could I do something like this?...

<?php
echo $array[0];
//Outputs "Apples"

echo $array[0][0];
//Outputs "Red"

echo $array[0][0][0];
//Outputs "$2.95"

echo $array[3][2][1];
//Outputs "$3.25" (Grapes > Green > Price)
?>

EDIT: The idea is that I can return the first level (Apples, Oranges, Grapes), second level (Red, Green, Navel, Purple, Green), and third level ($2.95, $2.45, $4.95, $3.75, $3.25) by calling a number.

For example, I want to do something like this:

<?php

count($array); //returns 3 (Apples, Oranges, Grapes)

//Do some for/foreach function that will produce the following:

//Apples
//->Red: $2.95
//->Green: $2.45
//Oranges
//->Navel: $4.95
//Grapes
//Purple: $3.75
//Green: $3.25

//I'm hoping to structure the code like this:

foreach($i = 0; $i =< count($array); $i++){
    //echo title of array (Apples)
    //echo each child key and it's value (Red: $2.95; Green: $2.45)

    foreach($secondcounter = 0; $secondcounter =< count($array[$i]); $secondcounter++){
        echo array_key($array[$i][$secondcounter]) . ": " .$array[$i][$secondcounter];
        //Note: I don't actually know if array_key does the trick or not, it's meant to return "Red" in this case, while the non array_key()'d is meant to return the price of red apples, $2.95
}

?>

EDIT: It is important to note that I cannot use words to call the data. I must use numbers, i.e. [0] to call the first item in the array, because Apples could change depending on what row of data I load from my database. In other words... Apples could actually turn out to be Books, and Red could turn out to be the name of the book => price.

I'm intending on using serialize/unserialize to store and retrieve the data from the database, although I'm not overly familiar with these functions, I had a brief look at them and they seem reasonably easy to use.


I've been researching for hours but I cant find anything. It is vital that I am able to call the data by numbers, not text. So $array["Apples"] is unacceptable.

I have also looked at json_decode and serialize/unserialize, and I think I get the basic idea of them from a brief look... but I think my main issue is understanding how to call the above data as presented in my example. Any help would be really great.

Answer

Jack Smith picture Jack Smith · Oct 31, 2011

This is the solution I came up with based on @Pixeler's answer.

<?php
$i = 0;
foreach ($array as $k1 => $v1) {
        if (is_array($v1)) {
            echo $k1."<br />";
                foreach ($v1 as $k2 => $v2) {
                    echo "--".$k2."<br />----".$v2."<br />";
                }
            $i++;
        }
        echo "<br /<br />";
}
?>