nested structures

[walterw]

Hi all,

I am writing an account management system for servers. It has a configuration class with several variables, one is an array with nested variables in it. The problem I am having is the array with the nested variable:

array = array(

"file_storage"=>array("quota"=>"100MB", "types"=>array("bytehoard", "quixplorer", "purftpd")),

"action"=>null,
"class"=>null,

"pureftpd"=>array("database"=>array("username"=>null, "name"=>null, "password"=>null),

"bytehoard"=>array("database"=>array("username"=>null, "name"=>null, "password"=>null),

"mysql_database"=>array("administrator"=>array("username"=>null, "password"=>null), "hostname"=>null, "port=>null));

Okay, I think you guys get the idea. What I want to do is call a function set_configuration($array, $keys, $values) and have it set the value for one of the keys. The value can be an array, and the keys can be an array. For example, if I want to set the mysql administrator username, keys would look like this:

$keys = array("mysql_database", "adminstrator", "username");

While I have a function that can get the value at that key, I don't know how I would go about modifying it. The function I wrote to find the value at the key is as follows.

function get_configuration($array, $key)
	{
		$temp_array;
		$search_key;
		if(is_array($key))
			$search_key = $key[0];
		else
			$search_key = $key;

	if(is_array($array))
		$temp_array = $array[$search_key];
	else if($array === null)
		$temp_array = $this->settings[$search_key];
	else
		return($array);

	$key_size = count($key);
	$new_key;
	if(is_array($temp_array) && is_array($key))
	{
		//If there is more searching to be done, continue, otherwise, give up.
		for($j=1;$j<$key_size;++$j)
			$new_key[] = $key[$j];

		return($this->get_configuration($temp_array, $new_key));
	}
	else
		return($temp_array);
}

Please let me know if you have any ideas about how I can go about doing this. I know I can simplify the structure, but it is more powerful to do it this way since I will be adding much more information that what is up there, and things are treated more as objects. Let me know if there is a simple function that already does this or if I am over looking something.

Thanks,
Walter

[tsinka]

Hi,

try the following code:

<?PHP
$arr = array(
"file_storage"  =>array("quota"=>"100MB", "types"=>array("bytehoard", "quixplorer", "purftpd")),
"action"        =>"",
"class"         =>"",
"pureftpd"      =>array("database"=>array("username"=>"", "name"=>"", "password"=>"")),
"bytehoard"     =>array("database"=>array("username"=>"", "name"=>"", "password"=>"")),
"mysql_database"=>array("administrator"=>array("username"=>"", "password"=>""), "hostname"=>"", "port"=>""));

print_r($arr);
$keys = array("mysql_database", "administrator", "username"); 
$value = array("aaa","bbb","ccc");
setVal($arr,$keys,$value);
print_r($arr);

function setVal(&$arr,$keys,$val) {
  $str  = "\$arr['".implode("']['",$keys)."']";
  $ev =<<<EOCODE
if (isset($str)) {
  $str = \$val;
}
EOCODE;

  eval($ev);
}
?>

I tested the code on my server. There mustn't be any spaces at the end of the lines
$ev=<<<EOCODE
and
EOCODE;

You'll get an error message otherwise.

You can use similar code to get a specific value without the need to walk through the array.

Thomas