PHP: testing for existence of a cell in a multidimensional array

Question

I have an array with numerous dimensions, and I want to test for the existence of a cell.

The below cascaded approach, will be for sure a safe way to do it:

Answer 1

I was having the same problem, except i needed it for some Drupal stuff. I also needed to check if objects contained items as well as arrays. Here's the code I made, its a recursive search that looks to see if objects contain the value as well as arrays. Thought someone might find it useful.

function recursiveIsset($variable, $checkArray, $i=0) {
    $new_var = null;
    if(is_array($variable) && array_key_exists($checkArray[$i], $variable))
        $new_var = $variable[$checkArray[$i]];
    else if(is_object($variable) && array_key_exists($checkArray[$i], $variable))
        $new_var = $variable->$checkArray[$i];
    if(!isset($new_var))
        return false;

    else if(count($checkArray) > $i + 1)
        return recursiveIsset($new_var, $checkArray, $i+1);
    else
        return $new_var;
}

Use: For instance

recursiveIsset($variables, array('content', 'body', '#object', 'body', 'und'))

In my case in drupal this ment for me that the following variable existed

$variables['content']['body']['#object']->body['und']

due note that just because '#object' is called object does not mean that it is. My recursive search also would return true if this location existed

$variables->content->body['#object']->body['und']