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 solution for you not in the pure PHP, but using ouzo goodies concretely Arrays::getNestedValue method:

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

$key = 'b.x.z';
$path = explode('.', $key);

print_r(Arrays::getNestedValue($arr, $path));

Similarly if you need to set nested value you can use Arrays::setNestedValue method.

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

Arrays::setNestedValue($arr, array('d', 'e', 'f'), 'value');
print_r($arr);