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phparrayskeyparenttraversal

PHP - Find parent key of array


I'm trying to find a way to return the value of an array's parent key.

For example, from the array below I'd like to find out the parent's key where $array['id'] == "0002". The parent key is obvious because it's defined here (it would be 'products'), but normally it'd be dynamic, hence the problem. The 'id' and value of 'id' is known though.

    [0] => Array
        (
            [data] => 
            [id] => 0000
            [name] => Swirl
            [categories] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 0001
                            [name] => Whirl
                            [products] => Array 
                               (
                                    [0] => Array
                                        (
                                            [id] => 0002
                                            [filename] => 1.jpg
                                         )
                                    [1] => Array
                                        (
                                            [id] => 0003
                                            [filename] => 2.jpg
                                         )
                                )
                         )
                 )
          )

Solution

  • A little crude recursion, but it should work:

    function find_parent($array, $needle, $parent = null) {
        foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
            if (is_array($value)) {
                $pass = $parent;
                if (is_string($key)) {
                    $pass = $key;
                }
                $found = find_parent($value, $needle, $pass);
                if ($found !== false) {
                    return $found;
                }
            } else if ($key === 'id' && $value === $needle) {
                return $parent;
            }
        }
    
        return false;
    }
    
    $parentkey = find_parent($array, '0002');