Parsing array values into multidimensional array

Question

I have some data I retrieve from a JSON feed that currently is being parsed into an array like this: (simplifying for demonstration purposes)

So pretty much an array returns a movie theater name, with the showtimes associated with that particular theater.

        [0] => American Theater
        [1] => 2014-06-04T13:10
        [2] => 2014-06-04T15:10
        [3] => Grand Theater
        [4] => 2014-06-04T15:30
        [5] => 2014-06-04T19:10

How would I parse this array to be multidimensional, for instance:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
    (

        [theater] => Array
            (
                [name] => American Theater
            )
        [showtimes] => Array
            (
                [1] => 2014-06-04T13:10
                [2] => 2014-06-04T15:10
            )

    )
    [1] => Array
    (

        [theater] => Array
            (
                [name] => Grand Theater
            )
        [showtimes] => Array
            (
                [1] => 2014-06-04T15:30
                [2] => 2014-06-04T19:10
            )

    )

 )

Kirill Fuchs · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-05 01:04:01Z

I'm assuming you're trying to access some api and have no control over how the data is passed back to you? If you do then the API should be responsible for returning a sensible schema.

But if you're forced to work with this array and the amount of showtimes are unknown to you, then you can do something like this:

$array = array(
    'American Theater', 
    '2014-06-04T13:10',
    '2014-06-04T15:10',
    'Grand Theater', 
    '2014-06-04T15:30',
    '2014-06-04T19:10'
);

$i = 0;

foreach ($array as $key => $value) {

    if (strtotime($value)) {
        $theaters[$i - 1]['showtimes'][] = $value;
    }
    else {
        $theaters[$i]['theater']['name'] = $value;
        $i++;
    }

}

Outcome

To walk you through it, $array is whatever the returned dataset is. We set an index in the $i value and want to only increment it if we determine we've detected a theater name. Within the loop we first try to determine if the string can be converted to a php time value. If it cannot we add the theater name to our new schema structure, and increment our index value. Since times are always added to theater names, we are expecting the first index number to always be one higher than what we want to add the showtime to.

This will fail to be accurate in cases when a theater name is convertible to a time value in such cases like Next Month. There are a couple of other ways to solve this with regex or by inspecting the string for certain characters and their position since the time format will remain the same.

You could replace the strtotime() with:

$str = str_split($value);
if (($str[4] && $str[7]) == '-' && $str[10] == 'T' && $str[13] == ':' ) {
    $theaters[$i - 1]['showtimes'][] = $value;
}

user1978142 · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-05 00:36:21Z

1

If you want such structure, you need to create a new copy of it. You may also need to chunk/group them by three's using array_chunk first, and then, from there, you can loop it now and start creating the desired format.

Consider this example:

$old_values = array('American Theater', '2014-06-04T13:10', '2014-06-04T15:10', 'Grand Theater', '2014-06-04T15:30', '2014-06-04T19:10');

$old_values = array_chunk($old_values, 3);
$new_values = array();
foreach($old_values as $key => $value) {
    $new_values[] = array(
        'theater' => array('name' => $value[0]),
        'showtimes' => array(1 => $value[1], 2 => $value[2]),
    );
}

Edit: As mentioned, one theater can have many showtimes, therefore this current solution will fail. This may be an alternative (you may need to check each element if its a theater name or a date). Consider this example:

$old_values = array(
    'American Theater',
    '2014-06-04T13:10',
    '2014-06-04T15:10',
    'Grand Theater',
    '2014-06-04T15:30',
    '2014-06-04T19:10',
    'Magic Johnson Theater',
    '2014-06-04T19:10',
    '2014-06-04T19:10',
    '2014-06-04T19:10',
    'Mall of America Theater',
    '2014-06-04T19:10',
    '2014-06-04T19:10',
    '2014-06-04T19:10',
    '2014-06-04T19:10',
);

$new_values = array();
$current_key = 0;
foreach($old_values as $key => $value) {
    $current_value = $value;
    $pieces = explode('T', $current_value);
    $dates = explode('-', $pieces[0]);
    if(count($dates) == 3) {
        $new_values[$current_key]['showtimes'][] = $current_value;
    } else {
        $current_key++;
        $new_values[$current_key]['theater']['name'] = $current_value;
    }
}

Sample Output:

Array
(
    [1] => Array
        (
            [theater] => Array
                (
                    [name] => American Theater
                )

            [showtimes] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 2014-06-04T13:10
                    [1] => 2014-06-04T15:10
                )

        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [theater] => Array
                (
                    [name] => Grand Theater
                )

            [showtimes] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 2014-06-04T15:30
                    [1] => 2014-06-04T19:10
                )

        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [theater] => Array
                (
                    [name] => Magic Johnson Theater
                )

            [showtimes] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 2014-06-04T19:10
                    [1] => 2014-06-04T19:10
                    [2] => 2014-06-04T19:10
                )

        )

    [4] => Array
        (
            [theater] => Array
                (
                    [name] => Mall of America Theater
                )

            [showtimes] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 2014-06-04T19:10
                    [1] => 2014-06-04T19:10
                    [2] => 2014-06-04T19:10
                    [3] => 2014-06-04T19:10
                )

        )

)

Sample Fiddle

edited Jun 5, 2014 at 0:36

answered Jun 5, 2014 at 0:03

user1978142

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5 Comments

tcornell05 Over a year ago

Unfortunately this wont work for me because some theaters return more times than others. So separating it into chunks would be inaccurate

user1978142 Over a year ago

@tcornell05 well you should have added that into the question :) so that its was taken to account

tcornell05 Over a year ago

my apologies! Thanks anyway.

user1978142 Over a year ago

@tcornell05 by the way, since each array element is unlabelled, how do you check if that value inside that particular element is indeed a 'theater name'? do you have some kind of a list? or you just have to check whether that particular element is a proper noun? since some elements are time.

user1978142 Over a year ago

@tcornell05 if that is the case you may check the edit

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