How to use a string as an array index path to retrieve a value?

Question

Let say I have an array like:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [Data] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 1
                    [title] => Manager
                    [name] => John Smith
                )
         )
    [1] => Array
        (
            [Data] => Array
                 (
                     [id] => 1
                     [title] => Clerk
                     [name] =>
                         (
                             [first] => Jane
                             [last] => Smith
                         )
                 )

        )

)

I want to be able to build a function that I can pass a string to that will act as the array index path and return the appropriate array value without using eval(). Is that possible?

function($indexPath, $arrayToAccess)
{
    // $indexPath would be something like [0]['Data']['name'] which would return 
    // "Manager" or it could be [1]['Data']['name']['first'] which would return 
    // "Jane" but the amount of array indexes that will be in the index path can 
    // change, so there might be 3 like the first example, or 4 like the second.

    return $arrayToAccess[$indexPath] // <- obviously won't work
}

Answer 1

you might use an array as path (from left to right), then a recursive function:

$indexes = {0, 'Data', 'name'};

function get_value($indexes, $arrayToAccess)
{
   if(count($indexes) > 1) 
    return get_value(array_slice($indexes, 1), $arrayToAccess[$indexes[0]]);
   else
    return $arrayToAccess[$indexes[0]];
}

Answer 2

function($indexPath, $arrayToAccess)
{
    eval('$return=$arrayToAccess'.$indexPath.';');
    return $return;
}

Answer 3

A Bit later, but... hope helps someone:

// $pathStr = "an:string:with:many:keys:as:path";
$paths = explode(":", $pathStr); 
$itens = $myArray;
foreach($paths as $ndx){
    $itens = $itens[$ndx];
}

Now itens is the part of the array you wanted to.

[]'s

Labs