PHP: How to use two dimensional array to display menu?

Question

I think I'm picking this up pretty well, but I'm just stuck on this. I want to display this menu using an array and foreach loop:

<a href="/design/payments"><img src="/img/page-icons/credit-card21.png" />Payments</a>
<a target="_blank" href="/cloud"><img src="/img/page-icons/upload123.png" />Cloud</a>
<a target="_blank" href="/portal"><img src="/img/page-icons/earth208.png" />Portal</a>

So to do that I need to turn that into this line in PHP:

echo '<a href="' . $link . '" target="' . $target . '"><img src="/img/page-icons/' . $image . '" />' . $title . '</a>';

To fill that out in the loop we need to create something like this... which is where I'm stuck:

foreach( $stamp as $link => $target ){
    echo '<a href="/' . $link . '" target="' . $target . '">';

    foreach( $stamp[] as $title => $image ){
        echo '<img src="/img/page-icons/' . $image . '" />' . $title;
    }

    echo '</a>';
}

I don't really know how to go about the above, just been messing around with it for a while today. I also don't want to always display target="' . $target . '" on every link.

The array would probably be a two dimensional array? Something like this any way:

$stamp = array(
    'link' => array('title' => 'image'),
    'link' => array('title' => 'image'),
    'link' => array('title' => 'image')
);

EDIT:

There's some confusion of what 'target' is, I want to echo 4 values from an array into a link, target is one of the values. I didn't know how to use that in the array so I just left it out.

waht is target here?

Death-is-the-real-truth
– Death-is-the-real-truth

2015-05-05 20:25:14 +00:00
Commented May 5, 2015 at 20:25 — Death-is-the-real-truth
– Death-is-the-real-truth, Commented May 5, 2015 at 20:25

Jeremy Harris · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-05 20:42:55Z

2

When you do:

foreach( $stamp as $link => $target )

The $link variable contains the string "link" and the $target variable is an array such as ['title' => 'image'].

What you should probably do is have an array like this:

// Init links
$links = array();

// Add links
$links[] = array(
   'title' => 'My Title',
   'href' => 'http://www.google.com',
   'target' => '_blank',
   'image' => 'image.png',
);

foreach ($links as $link)
{
   echo '<a href="'.$link['href'].'" target="'.$link['target'].'">';
       echo '<img src="/img/page-icons/' . $link['image'] . '" />';
       echo $link['title']; 
   echo '</a>';
}

This is a bit more flexible approach that lets you add other data items to the structure in the future. That $links array could easily be generated in a loop if you have a different data source such as a database as well.

EDIT

To answer your further question, you can prefix the link building with a set of sane defaults like this:

foreach ($links as $link)
{
   // Use the ternary operator to specify a default if empty
   $href = empty($link['href']) ? '#' : $link['href'];
   $target = empty($link['target']) ? '_self' : $link['target'];
   $image = empty($link['image']) ? 'no-icon.png' : $link['image'];
   $title = empty($link['title']) ? 'Untitled' : $link['title'];

   // Write link
   echo "<a href='$href' target='$target'>";
       echo "<img src='/img/page-icons/$image' />";
       echo $title; 
   echo "</a>";
}

edited May 5, 2015 at 20:42

answered May 5, 2015 at 20:22

Jeremy Harris

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3 Comments

Matthew Over a year ago

Thanks! Now with what you've provided, how would I see if target exists in the array and if it does then echo target if not then echo the link without the target=""? In my mind I see it being done through an if statement like if (array_key_exists('target', $links)) {}?

Jeremy Harris Over a year ago

I updated my answer with some additional help. If my answer has helped you, can you please accept it?

Matthew Over a year ago

Is there a way to check if target is actually in the array though?

Ali insan Soyaslan · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-05 20:26:51Z

0

you can set your array like:

$stamp = array(
 '0' => array('title'=>$title 'image'=>$image,'link'=>$link,'target'=>$target),
 '1' => array('title'=>$title, 'image'=>$image,'link'=>$link,,'target'=>$target),
 '2' => array('title'=>$title 'image'=>$image,'link'=>$link,'target'=>$target)
);

and in foreach you can write

$i=0;
foreach( $stamp as $st=> $target ){
echo '<a href="/' . $st['link'] . '" target="' . $st['target'] . '">';


    echo '<img src="/img/page-icons/' . $st['image'] . '" />' . $st['title'];


echo '</a>';

}

answered May 5, 2015 at 20:26

Ali insan Soyaslan

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