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phparraysmultidimensional-array
Alexecus
Alexecus

Reputation: 69

PHP: Convert Multidimensional Array to String

I am trying to convert a multidimensional array into a string.

Till now I have been able to convert a pipe delimited string into an array.

Such as:

group|key|value
group|key_second|value

Will render into the following array:

$x = array(
    'group' => array(
        'key' => 'value',
        'key_second' => 'value'
    ),
);

However, now I want it to be the other way around, where a multidimensional array is provided and I want to convert it to a pipe delimited string just like in the first code example.

Any ideas how to do this ?

PS: Please do note that the array can dynamically have any depth.

For example:

$x['group']['sub_group']['category']['key'] = 'value'

Translates to

group|sub_group|category|key|value

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3347

Answers (5)

Alexecus
Alexecus

Reputation: 69

I have created my own function: This should have no problem handling even big arrays

function array_to_pipe($array, $delimeter = '|', $parents = array(), $recursive = false)
{
    $result = '';

    foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
        $group = $parents;
        array_push($group, $key);

        // check if value is an array
        if (is_array($value)) {
            if ($merge = array_to_pipe($value, $delimeter, $group, true)) {
                $result = $result . $merge;
            }
            continue;
        }

        // check if parent is defined
        if (!empty($parents)) {
            $result = $result . PHP_EOL . implode($delimeter, $group) . $delimeter . $value;
            continue;
        }

        $result = $result . PHP_EOL . $key . $delimeter . $value;
    }

    // somehow the function outputs a new line at the beginning, we fix that
    // by removing the first new line character
    if (!$recursive) {
        $result = substr($result, 1);
    }

    return $result;
}

Demo provided here http://ideone.com/j6nThF

Upvotes: 2

Drath Vedro
Drath Vedro

Reputation: 330

This code should do the thing.

You needed a recursive function to do this. But be careful not to pass object or a huge array into it, as this method is very memory consuming.

function reconvert($array,$del,$path=array()){
    $string="";
    foreach($array as $key=>$val){
        if(is_string($val) || is_numeric($val)){
            $string.=implode($del,$path).$del.$key.$del.$val."\n";
        } else if(is_bool($val)){
            $string.=implode($del,$path).$del.$key.$del.($val?"True":"False")."\n";
        } else if(is_null($val)){
            $string.=implode($del,$path).$del.$key.$del."NULL\n";
        }else if(is_array($val)=='array') {
            $path[]=$key;
            $string.=reconvert($val,$del,$path);
            array_pop($path);
        } else {
            throw new Exception($key." has type ".gettype($val).' which is not a printable value.');
        }
    }
    return $string;
}

DEMO: http://ideone.com/89yLLo

Upvotes: 1

Luthando Ntsekwa
Luthando Ntsekwa

Reputation: 4218

You can also do this using a loop like this: 

$x = array(
'group' => array(
    'key' => 'value',
    'key_second' => 'value'
)
);
$yourstring ="";
foreach ($x as $key => $value)
{
    foreach ($x[$key] as $key2 => $value2)
    {
        $yourstring .= $key.'|'.$key2.'|'.$x[$key][$key2]."<BR />";
    }
}

echo $yourstring;

Here is a working DEMO

Upvotes: 1

Amit.S
Amit.S

Reputation: 441

You can do this if you specifically want a string :

$x = array(
'group' => array(
    'key' => 'value',
    'key_second' => 'value'
),
 'group2' => array(
    'key2' => 'value',
    'key_second2' => 'value'
),
);
$str='';
foreach ($x as $key=>$value)
{
   if($str=='')
       $str.=$key;
   else
       $str.="|$key";
   foreach ($value as $key1=>$value1)
       $str.="|$key1|$value1";

}

echo $str;  //it will print group|key|value|key_second|value|group2|key2|value|key_second2|value

Upvotes: 0

Abdulla Nilam
Abdulla Nilam

Reputation: 38584

You can do it by

  1. Look at serialize and unserialize.
  2. Look at json_encode and json_decode
  3. Look at implode

And Possible duplicate of Multidimensional Array to String

Upvotes: 0

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