relationships in multi-dimensinal array

[wadearnold]

I am trying my best to make relationships withen an array. Is this even possible?

I have parsed my xml to produce an array that would be hard coded to look like this:

$osPrices = array (
array( product =>"linux", cost=>"0"),
array(product =>"Windows 2000",cost=>"299.99")
);

If I have a variable that has a value of linux. How do I know what the cost of linux is? This would be an sql statement like: "select cost from osPrices where product = 'linux'"
Is it even possible to do something like this without iterating through the entire array? If that is the case how do I search for relations in an xml file? If you have a url or anything to help me that would be great!

[amcgrath]

Would the array work better if it were:

$product[] = array("name"=>"linux","cost" => "0");

$product[] = array("name"=>"windows 2000","cost" => "299.99");

and so on ....?

[phigga]

This doesn't exactly answer your question, but FWIW:

I think that if the only data you're storing is the price of something (an OS here), you're making it more difficult that it needs to be. Instead of having a multidimensional array like you have above, you could just do this:

$osPrices = array ('Linux'=>'0.00', 'Windows 2000'=>'299.99' );

then, to get the cost of an OS, you would just do:

echo $osPrices[Linux];

or if you passed the os name in a variable:

echo $osPrices[$currentOS];

Like i said, i know this doesn't answer your question, but if this is truly all you're doing, it should make things easier for you.