PHP: How to generate a <ul><li> tree in an xml2assoc array result?

Question

Hi,

I have seen many PHP function on how to generate a <ul><li> tag but my array input is quite complicated I guess. It is an array returned from a custom function called xml2assoc

My question is how can I convert the returned xml2assoc array result to a <ul><li> formatted HTML code using PHP.

Thanks.

$tree = array(
    0 => array(
     'tag' => 'NavigationMode',
     'value' => array(
      0 => array(
       'tag' => 'Title',
       'value' => 'Introduction'
      ),
      1 => array(
       'tag' => 'NavigationNode',
       'value' => array(
        0 => array(
         'tag' => 'Title',
         'value' => 'Sub Intro'
        )
       )
      )
     )
    ),
    1 => array(
     'tag' => 'NavigationMode',
     'value' => array(
      0 => array(
       'tag' => 'Title',
       'value' => 'Module 1'
      )
     )
    )
);

The final output that I need to generate is like this:

<ul>
    <li>
    Introduction
    <ul>
        <li>Sub Intro</li>
    </ul>
    </li>

    <li>Module 1</li>
</ul>

Answer 1

If you have XML as input, why not use XSLT to transform it to <ul>?

I guess your input looks something like this (I assume "Navigation*M*ode" is a typo):

<tree>
  <NavigationNode>
    <title>Introduction</title>
    <NavigationNode>
      <title>Sub Intro</title>
    </NavigationNode>
  </NavigationNode>
  <NavigationNode>
    <title>Module 1</title>
  </NavigationNode>
</tree>

With a small XSLT 1.0 stylesheet:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"&gt;

  <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes" />

  <xsl:template match="/tree">
    <ul>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="NavigationNode" />
    </ul>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="NavigationNode">
    <li>
      <xsl:value-of select="title" />
      <xsl:if test="NavigationNode">
        <ul>
          <xsl:apply-templates select="NavigationNode" />
        </ul>
      </xsl:if>
    </li>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

This output is produced:

<ul>
  <li>
    Introduction
    <ul>
      <li>Sub Intro</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Module 1</li>
</ul>

The PHP documentation shows how to use XSLT. It's simple.

Answer 2

Here is a quick PHP implementation for your array structure to get you started:

function create_html_list($nodes)
{
    echo '<ul>';

    foreach ($nodes as $node) {
        $childNodes = $node['value'];
        $titleNode = array_shift($childNodes);

        echo "<li>", $titleNode['value'];

        if (count($childNodes) > 0) {
            create_html_list($childNodes);
        }

        echo "</li>";
    }

    echo '</ul>';
}

Answer 3

Thanks Tomalak for your answer. I will try that out but first I need to edit this function (almost working). Can you help me out? Thanks again :D

function renderMenu($tree)
{
  foreach($tree as $item)
  {
    echo '<li><a href="'.$item['url'].'">';
    if(is_array($item['value']))
    {
      echo '<ul>';
      renderMenu($item['value']);
      echo '</ul>';
    }
    else if($item['tag'] === 'Title')
    {
      echo $item['value'] . ' dito';
    }
    echo '</a></li>';
  }
}

echo '<ul>'.renderMenu($tree).'</ul>';

Answer 4

i didn't test it for variations of the demo data ...

<?php

function getTitle($node) {
    foreach ($node['value'] as $cnode) {
            if ($cnode['tag'] == 'Title') {
                return $cnode['value'];
            }
    }

    return 'untitled';
}

function getCNodes($node) {
    $cnodes = array();

    foreach ($node['value'] as $cnode) {
        if ($cnode['tag'] == 'NavigationNode') {
            $cnodes[] = $cnode;
        }
    }

    return $cnodes;
}

function runTree($node) {
    $title  = getTitle($node);
    $cnodes = getCNodes($node);

    if (count($cnodes) > 0) {
        $out = '<li>' . $title . "\n" . '<ul>';
        foreach ($cnodes as $cnode) {
            $out .= runTree($cnode);
        }
        $out .= '</ul>' . "\n" . '</li>' . "\n";

        return $out;
    } else {
        return '<li>' . $title . '</li>' . "\n";
    }
}


$tree = array(
    0 => array(
        'tag' => 'NavigationMode',
        'value' => array(
                0 => array(
                        'tag' => 'Title',
                        'value' => 'Introduction'
                ),
                1 => array(
                        'tag' => 'NavigationNode',
                        'value' => array(
                                0 => array(
                                        'tag' => 'Title',
                                        'value' => 'Sub Intro'
                                )
                        )
                )
        )
    ),
    1 => array(
        'tag' => 'NavigationMode',
        'value' => array(
                0 => array(
                        'tag' => 'Title',
                        'value' => 'Module 1'
                )
        )
    )
);



echo '<ul>';
foreach ($tree as $node) {
    echo runTree($node);
}
echo '</ul>';

?>