Variable containing a path as a string to multi-dimensional array?

Question

I'm looking to take a string such as

"/test/uri/to/heaven"

and turn it into a multi-dimensional, nested array such as:

array(
    'var' => array(
        'www' => array(
            'vhosts' => array()            
        ),
    ),
);

Anyone got any pointers? I've had a look through Google and the search here, but I've not seen anything.

Doing this usually makes little sense, which is why there's no explode() function that works this way. What do you need this for? — Pekka
– Pekka, Commented Oct 4, 2010 at 16:14
Well, explode gives me a flat array. I was wondering how I get the results of an explode, retaining the depth of the path in the string as per my example? — BeesonBison
– BeesonBison, Commented Oct 4, 2010 at 16:16

Arosha De Silva · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-14 14:48:39Z

5

Here is a quick non recursive hack:

$url   = "/test/uri/to/heaven";
$parts = explode('/',$url);

$arr = array();
while ($bottom = array_pop($parts)) {        
    $arr = array($bottom => $arr);
}

var_dump($arr);

Output:

array(1) {
  ["test"]=>
  array(1) {
    ["uri"]=>
    array(1) {
      ["to"]=>
      array(1) {
        ["heaven"]=>
        array(0) {
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

edited Jan 14, 2019 at 14:48

Arosha De Silva

5978 silver badges18 bronze badges

answered Oct 4, 2010 at 16:22

ITroubs

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3 Comments

ITroubs Over a year ago

my var_dump looks like this: array(1) { ["test"]=> array(1) { ["uri"]=> array(1) { ["to"]=> array(1) { ["heaven"]=> array(0) { } } } } }

TarranJones Over a year ago

i would like to be able to reverse this back to a string again. any idea how ?

ITroubs Over a year ago

@TarranJones this answer stackoverflow.com/questions/1319903/… seems to be nice and short

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