Okay, so I know that using eval() isn't great, but I haven't been able to come up with a better solution to my problem, and until recently, there wasn't a performance reason not to use it. However, I am now passing enough data to the function that it is taking unacceptably long.
The function that is being called is:
public static function makeAMultiDimensionalArrayWithSumsBasedOnMultipleFields($inArray, $dimensionFieldNames, $sumFieldNameArray, $staticFieldNameArray = array())
{
$outArray = array();
// Just in case the array has indices, sort it so array_pop works as expected.
ksort($dimensionFieldNames);
foreach ($inArray as $row)
{
// make sure each row in the inArray has all keys specified by $dimensionFieldNames
$allFieldsPresent = TRUE;
foreach ($dimensionFieldNames as $keyFieldName)
{
if (!array_key_exists($keyFieldName, $row))
{
// Note that alternatively we could set the field to a specified default value.
$allFieldsPresent = FALSE;
}
}
if ($allFieldsPresent)
{
$indexString = '';
$keyFieldNameArrayCopy = $dimensionFieldNames;
foreach ($dimensionFieldNames as $keyFieldName)
{
$indexString .= "['" . $row[$keyFieldName] . "']";
// lets sum values
foreach ($sumFieldNameArray as $sumFieldName)
{
eval ('$outArray' . $indexString . '[' . $sumFieldName . '] += $row[' . $sumFieldName . '];');
}
foreach ($staticFieldNameArray as $staticFieldName)
{
eval ('$outArray' . $indexString . '[' . $staticFieldName . '] = $row[' . $staticFieldName . '];');
}
}
}
}
return $outArray;
}
It is being called like this:
makeAMultiDimensionalArrayWithSumsBasedOnMultipleFields($data, $dimensionArray, $sumArray, $staticArray);
And the variables being passed to the function are similar to:
$dimensionArray = array("firstLevelID", "secondLevelID", "thirdLevelID", "fourthLevelID", "fifthLevelID");
$sumArray = array("revenue", "cost", "profit", "sales", "inquires", "cost", "walkins");
$staticArray = array("date", "storeID", "storeName", "productID", "productName", "managerID", "managerName", "salesperson");
So I want to rewrite the function so that I'm not using eval() any more. I've spent a considerable amount of time on this, and feel that it's time to seek some advice.
The goal is to take an array of arrays, and turn it into a multidimensional array based on the dimensions in the $dimensionArray.
I don't want to bore you with too many details right now, so please ask if you need more or have any other questions
Wow, okay. First time through I missed your indexing concatenation. Try this:
if ($allFieldsPresent) {
$keys = array();
foreach ($dimensionFieldNames as $keyFieldName) {
$keys[] = $row[$keyFieldName];
// lets sum values
foreach ($sumFieldNameArray as $sumFieldName)
self::deepAssign($outArray, $keys, $sumFieldName, $row[$sumFieldName], true);
foreach ($staticFieldNameArray as $staticFieldName)
self::deepAssign($outArray, $keys, $staticFieldName, $row[$staticFieldName]);
}
}
protected static function deepAssign(&$array, $keys, $fieldName, $value, $sum = false) {
$target =& $array;
foreach ($keys as $key) {
if (!isset($target[$key]))
$target[$key] = array();
$target =& $target[$key];
}
if($sum)
$target[$fieldName] += $value;
else
$target[$fieldName] = $value;
}
You should look at create_function()
(docs here)