flattening nested array in PHP

Asked Sep 26 '17 at 07:47

Active Sep 26 '17 at 08:52

Viewed 351 times

function array_flatten($array,$return) {
    for($x = 0; $x <= count($array); $x++) {
        if(is_array($array[$x])) {
            $return = array_flatten($array[$x], $return); //4th line
        }
        else {
            if(isset($array[$x])) {
                 $return[] = $array[$x];
            }
        }
    }
    return $return;
}

$res = array_flatten($myarray, array());

I used the above function to flatten my nested, but am still struggling to figure out why do the author passed the function back to $return on line 4. and if I were to change $return on line 4 to something else, the function breaks. Can anyone explain..

edited Sep 26 '17 at 08:52

Nigel Ren

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asked Sep 26 '17 at 07:47

Salam.MSaif

That's a recursive call. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion_(computer_science) – Matey Sep 26 '17 at 07:52
1

Possible duplicate of [How to Flatten a Multidimensional Array?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1319903/how-to-flatten-a-multidimensional-array) – Lenwood Sep 26 '17 at 07:52
Can you tell the array input and what the expected output you want? – Akkapong Kajornwongwattana Sep 26 '17 at 09:19
Inputting a multidimentional array will result in 1 dimensional array – Salam.MSaif Sep 26 '17 at 09:58

flattening nested array in PHP

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