PHP - create multidimensional array inside function

Question

I want to create multidimensional array inside function and then access it outside function. Right now I have this function:

function custom_shop_array_create($product, $counter){
    $product_id = get_the_ID();
    $product_title = get_the_title($product_id);
    $products_arr[]['id'] = $product_id;
    $products_arr[]['title'] = $product_title;
    $products_arr[]['price'] = $product->get_price();
    $products_arr[]['image'] = get_the_post_thumbnail($product_id, 'product-list-thumb', array('class' => 'product-thumbnail', 'title' => $product_title));
    return $products_arr;
}

and it is called inside this code:

$products_arr = array();
    if ( $products->have_posts() ) : while ( $products->have_posts() ) : $products->the_post();
        custom_shop_array_create($product);
    endwhile;
    endif;

the problem is that I cant access $products_arr. I have tried replacing custom_shop_array_create($product); with $my_array[] = custom_shop_array_create($product); but then I get 3 dimensional array. So is there any way to get 2 dimensional array that would look like this:

product 1 (id,title,price,image)
product 2 (id,title,price,image) etc.

outside of the function.

Thanks in forward

Answer 1

Sure. Make your function return a row of the final array and do the appending yourself:

function custom_shop_array_create($product, $counter){
    $product_id = get_the_ID();
    $product_title = get_the_title($product_id);
    return [
        'id' => $product_id,
        'title' => $product_title,
        // etc
    ];
}

And then:

$products_arr = array();
if ( $products->have_posts() ) :
    while ( $products->have_posts() ) : 
        $products->the_post();
        $products_arr[] = custom_shop_array_create($product);
    endwhile;
endif;

That said, something strange is going on in the while loop. What does $products->the_post() do? Where is $product coming from?