How to access and manipulate multi-dimensional array by key names / path?

Question

I\'ve to implement a setter in PHP, that allows me to specify the key, or sub key, of an array (the target), passing the name as a dot-separated-keys value.

Answer 1

I have a utility I regularly use that I'll share. The difference being it uses array access notation (e.g. b[x][z]) instead of dot notation (e.g. b.x.z). With the documentation and code it is fairly self-explanatory.

a->b->c = 'val' or $input['a']['b']['c'] = 'val' will
     * return "val" with path "a[b][c]".
     * @see Utils::arrayParsePath
     * @param mixed $input
     * @param string $path
     * @param mixed $default Optional default value to return on failure (null)
     * @return NULL|mixed NULL on failure, or the value on success (which may also be NULL)
     */
    public static function getValueByPath($input,$path,$default=null) {
        if ( !(isset($input) && (static::isIterable($input) || is_scalar($input))) ) {
            return $default; // null already or we can't deal with this, return early
        }
        $pathArray = static::arrayParsePath($path);
        $last = &$input;
        foreach ( $pathArray as $key ) {
            if ( is_object($last) && property_exists($last,$key) ) {
                $last = &$last->$key;
            } else if ( (is_scalar($last) || is_array($last)) && isset($last[$key]) ) {
                $last = &$last[$key];
            } else {
                return $default;
            }
        }
        return $last;
    }

    /**
     * Parses an array path like a[b][c] into a lookup array like array('a','b','c')
     * @param string $path
     * @return array
     */
    public static function arrayParsePath($path) {
        preg_match_all('/\\[([^[]*)]/',$path,$matches);
        if ( isset($matches[1]) ) {
            $matches = $matches[1];
        } else {
            $matches = array();
        }
        preg_match('/^([^[]+)/',$path,$name);
        if ( isset($name[1]) ) {
            array_unshift($matches,$name[1]);
        } else {
            $matches = array();
        }
        return $matches;
    }

    /**
     * Check if a value/object/something is iterable/traversable, 
     * e.g. can it be run through a foreach? 
     * Tests for a scalar array (is_array), an instance of Traversable, and 
     * and instance of stdClass
     * @param mixed $value
     * @return boolean
     */
    public static function isIterable($value) {
        return is_array($value) || $value instanceof Traversable || $value instanceof stdClass;
    }
}

$arr = array('a' => 1,
             'b' => array(
                 'y' => 2,
                 'x' => array('z' => 5, 'w' => 'abc')
             ),
             'c' => null);

$key = 'b[x][z]';

var_dump(Utils::getValueByPath($arr,$key)); // int 5

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