How to Flatten a Multidimensional Array?
As of PHP 5.3 the shortest solution seems to be array_walk_recursive() with the new closures syntax:
function flatten(array $array) {
$return = array();
array_walk_recursive($array, function($a) use (&$return) { $return[] = $a; });
return $return;
}
You can use the Standard PHP Library (SPL) to "hide" the recursion.
$a = array(1,2,array(3,4, array(5,6,7), 8), 9);
$it = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(new RecursiveArrayIterator($a));
foreach($it as $v) {
echo $v, " ";
}
prints
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9