PHP Dynamically adding dimensions to an array using for loop

Question

Here is my dilemma and thank you in advance!

I am trying to create a variable variable or something of the sort for a dynamic associative array and having a hell of a time figuring out how to do this. I am creating a file explorer so I am using the directories as the keys in the array.

Example:
I need to get this so I can assign it values

$dir_list['root']['folder1']['folder2'] = value;

so I was thinking of doing something along these lines...

if ( $handle2 = @opendir( $theDir.'/'.$file ))
{
    $tmp_dir_url = explode($theDir);
    for ( $k = 1; $k < sizeof ( $tmp_dir_url ); $k++ )
    {
        $dir_list [ $dir_array [ sizeof ( $dir_array ) - 1 ] ][$tmp_dir_url[$k]]
    }

this is where I get stuck, I need to dynamically append a new dimension to the array durring each iteration through the for loop...but i have NO CLUE how

Answer 1

I would use a recursive approach like this:

function read_dir_recursive( $dir ) {
    $results = array( 'subdirs' => array(), 'files' => array() );
    foreach( scandir( $dir ) as $item ) {
        // skip . & ..
        if ( preg_match( '/^\.\.?$/', $item ) )
            continue;
        $full = "$dir/$item";
        if ( is_dir( $full ) )
            $results['subdirs'][$item] = scan_dir_recursive( $full );
        else
            $results['files'][] = $item;
    }
}

The code is untested as I have no PHP here to try it out.

Cheers,
haggi

Answer 2

You can freely put an array into array cell, effectively adding 1 dimension for necessary directories only.

I.e.

$a['x'] = 'text';
$a['y'] = new array('q', 'w');

print($a['x']);
print($a['y']['q']);

Answer 3

How about this? This will stack array values into multiple dimensions.

$keys = array(
'year',
'make',
'model',
'submodel',
);

$array = array(); print_r(array_concatenate($array, $keys)); function array_concatenate($array, $keys){ if(count($keys) === 0){ return $array; } $key = array_shift($keys); $array[$key] = array(); $array[$key] = array_concatenate($array[$key], $keys); return $array; }

In my case, I knew what i wanted $keys to contain. I used it to take the place of:

if(isset($array[$key0]) && isset($array[$key0][$key1] && isset($array[$key0][$key1][$key2])){ // do this }

Cheers.