Zend Extension: Accessing arrays?

[grue]

Hi, I have been looking around for an example of accessing a PHP Array from a PHP C-language extension.

The best documentation I could find:

http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/appdocs/php/zend.arguments.access.html

Describes how to access variables up to (but not including) Arrays and Objects. For those two, all it says is "Accessing Arrays and Objects is a bit more complicated and is discussed later." But I can't find the "later."

If I have:

zval *theArray;

if (zend_parse_parameters(ZEND_NUM_ARGS() TSRMLS_CC, "a", &theArray) == FAILURE)
  {
  return;
  }

How can I, in C, iterate over the members of the array and get info about any associations?

For instance, if I created the PHP array:

$php_array = array();
$php_array['1'] = 'a';
$php_array['2'] = 'b';
$php_sub_array = array();
$php_sub_array['x'] = 'i';
$php_sub_array['y'] = 'j';
$php_array['3'] = $php_sub_array;

and passed $php_array to my function, can you show me (or give me an idea), how to walk the root array getting each element's 'key' and the 'value'?

If you can show me that, I can extrapolate for reading sub-arrays -- unless there are any gotcha's I should know about.

Thanks.

[grue]

I found some info in "ext/standard/array.c" that let me cobble this together -- have no idea if works properly, but it seems to... If you know about this kind of stuff and see anything I'm doing stupidly (Like, I still have no idea what the 'TSRMLS_*' macros are for and when they're necessary), please let me know:

ZEND_FUNCTION(array_test)
{
  zval *array;

  HashTable *hash_media;
  HashPosition hash_position_media;
  zval **zval_element;
  char *string_key;
  int string_key_len;
  int num_key;

  if (zend_parse_parameters(ZEND_NUM_ARGS() TSRMLS_CC,
      "a", 
      &array
      ) == FAILURE)
    {
    return;
    }

  hash_media = HASH_OF(array);

  zend_printf("size of array: %d<BR>", zend_hash_num_elements(hash_media));

  zend_hash_internal_pointer_reset_ex(hash_media, &hash_position_media);

  while (SUCCESS == zend_hash_get_current_data_ex(hash_media, (void **) &zval_element, &hash_position_media))
    {

//
// Lookup the key associated with this element.
//
switch (zend_hash_get_current_key_ex(hash_media, &string_key, &string_key_len, &num_key, 0, &hash_position_media))
  {
  case HASH_KEY_IS_STRING:
    zend_printf("got a string key: %s<BR>", string_key);
    break;
  case HASH_KEY_IS_LONG:
    zend_printf("got a long key: %d<BR>", num_key);
    break;
  }

//
// Print this element's value.
// 
switch (Z_TYPE_PP(zval_element))
  {
  case IS_NULL:
    zend_printf("Value is NULL<BR>");
    break;
  case IS_LONG:
  case IS_BOOL:
  case IS_RESOURCE:
    zend_printf("Value's an lval: %d<BR>", (*zval_element)->value.lval);
    break;
  case IS_DOUBLE:
    zend_printf("Value's a dval: %g<BR>", (*zval_element)->value.dval);
    break;
  case IS_STRING:
    zend_printf("Value's a string: %s<BR>", (*zval_element)->value.str);
    break;
  case IS_ARRAY:
    zend_printf("Value's an array: %lX<BR>", (*zval_element)->value.ht);
    break;
  case IS_OBJECT:
    zend_printf("Value's an object: %lX\n", (*zval_element)->value.obj);
    break;
  case IS_CONSTANT:
    zend_printf("Value's a constant?\n");
  default:
    zend_printf("HUH?<BR>");
    break;
  }

zend_hash_move_forward_ex(hash_media, &hash_position_media);
}
}

[bbaassiri]

have you tried asking this question to the newsgroup

comp.lang.php