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

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

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]];
}

This is an old question but it has been referenced as this question comes up frequently.

There are recursive functions but I use a reference:

function array_nested_value($array, $path) {
    $temp = &$array;

    foreach($path as $key) {
        $temp =& $temp[$key];
    }
    return $temp;
}

$path  = array(0, 'Data', 'Name');
$value = array_nested_value($array, $path);

Try the following where $indexPath is formatted like a file path i.e.

'<array_key1>/<array_key2>/<array_key3>/...'.

function($indexPath, $arrayToAccess)
{
    $explodedPath = explode('/', $indexPath);
    $value =& $arrayToAccess;
    foreach ($explodedPath as $key) {
        $value =& $value[$key];
    }
    return $value;
}

e.g. using the data from the question, $indexPath = '1/Data/name/first' would return $value = Jane.

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