Multi-Dimensional Array to HTML

[JasonLewis]

I'm absolutely stumped, it's 1am and my brain is pretty much fried from staring at this. I can't get my head around it, so hopefully someone here can.

 

I'm building a dynamic menu with nested items which can be nested an infinite amount of times. I've managed to pull the data from the database and organize it into a multi-dimensional array, however now I want to turn this array into a list with the items properly nested. I thought this would be the easy part, but apparently not.

 

Here is an example of the array:

Array
(
    [1] => Array
        (
            [PAGE_ID] => 1
            [PARENT_ID] => 0
            [AUTHOR_ID] => 1
            [page_name] => Example Page 01
            [page_permalink] => example-page-01
            [page_body] => This is an example page.
            [page_visibility] => 1
            [page_creation_date] => 2010-01-20 14:29:09
            [page_modification_date] => 0000-00-00 00:00:00
            [children] => Array
                (
                    [2] => Array
                        (
                            [PAGE_ID] => 2
                            [PARENT_ID] => 1
                            [AUTHOR_ID] => 1
                            [page_name] => Example Page 02
                            [page_permalink] => example-page-02
                            [page_body] => This is an example page.
                            [page_visibility] => 1
                            [page_creation_date] => 2010-01-20 14:29:38
                            [page_modification_date] => 0000-00-00 00:00:00
                            [children] => Array
                                (
                                    [3] => Array
                                        (
                                            [PAGE_ID] => 3
                                            [PARENT_ID] => 2
                                            [AUTHOR_ID] => 1
                                            [page_name] => Example Page 03
                                            [page_permalink] => example-page-03
                                            [page_body] => This is an example page.
                                            [page_visibility] => 1
                                            [page_creation_date] => 2010-01-20 14:31:47
                                            [page_modification_date] => 0000-00-00 00:00:00
                                        )

                                )

                        )

                    [4] => Array
                        (
                            [PAGE_ID] => 4
                            [PARENT_ID] => 1
                            [AUTHOR_ID] => 1
                            [page_name] => Example Page 04
                            [page_permalink] => example-page-04
                            [page_body] => An example page.
                            [page_visibility] => 1
                            [page_creation_date] => 2010-01-20 22:05:00
                            [page_modification_date] => 0000-00-00 00:00:00
                        )

                )

        )

)
1

 

Currently I have nothing, since I have been getting no where with it. If you can provide me with the theory behind it then that would be great.

 

At the moment I know I need some kind of recursive function, but I'm still stumped.

 

Regards,

Jason Lewis

[Buddski]

$menu = '';

function iterateMenu($array,&$output) {
$output .= '<ul style="list-style:none;">';
foreach ($array as $values) {
	$output .= '<li>'.$values['PAGE_NAME'].'</li>';
	if (isset($values['children']) && is_array($values['children'])) {
		$output .= '<li>';
		iterateMenu($values['children'],$output);
		$output .= '</li>';
	}
}
$output .= '</ul>';
}

iterateMenu($a,$menu);

echo $menu;

 

Should get you started

[JasonLewis]

Cheers, I've been starting to do it like this then I think, no that can't work. However, I've managed to get it working now with the theory that you've supplied.

 

However. I still can't get my head around it, maybe I'm just being arrogant. The way I see this theory is that it'll detect that a parent has children, then go into the array more and if the parent had another parent after it, then it would be skipped. But it's not how it works, and I can't figure out how it is working. Again, I think I'm looking to hard at it and not seeing the clear picture.

 

Thanks though, I've got it to display correctly, I just need to know HOW it displays it correctly now.