如何使用AJAX搜索PHP多维数组

Question

I have a multidimensional array with which I want to search for values and keys using this

<input type="text" onkeyup="showHint(this.value)"></input>

along with this

function showHint(str)
{
if (str.length==0)
  { 
  document.getElementById("nav").innerHTML="";
  return;
  }
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
  {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
  xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
else
  {// code for IE6, IE5
  xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  }
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
  {
  if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
    {
    document.getElementById("nav").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
    }
  }
xmlhttp.open("GET","gethint.php?q="+str,true);
xmlhttp.send();
}

I am just a bit stuck on the php bit. The array looks something like this (shortened)

Array
(
[Modest Mouse] => Array
  (
  [The Moon & Antarctica] => Array
    (
    [0] => 3rd Planet
    [1] => Gravity Rides Everything
    [2] => Dark Centre of the Universe
    )
  [The Lonesome Crowded West] => Array
    (
    [7] => Cowboy Dan
    [8] => Trailer Trash
    [9] => Out of Gas
    )
[The Vasco Era] => Array
  [Lucille] => Array
    (
    [0] => Not Stuck Here
    [1] => For No One
    )
  )
)

I start by getting the query

$q=$_GET["q"];

Then I can do this

if (strlen($q) > 0)
    {
    $hint="";
    foreach($a as $b => $c)
        {
        if (strtolower($q)==strtolower(substr($b,0,strlen($q))))
            {
            if ($hint=="")
                {
                $hint=$b;
                }
            else
                {
                $hint=$hint." , ".$b;
                }
            }
         }
      }

Which can get me Modest Mouse or The Vasco Era, but not anything deeper. If I were to type 'T' into the input field, I would like to be able to get the results 'The Moon & Antartica', 'The Lonesome Crowded West', 'Trailer Trash' and 'The Vasco Era'.

Answer 1

You can have a function that takes a variable and checks if it is an array, if it is an array loop through each element of the array. Subsequently if these elements are arrays recursively call back into this function, if they are not arrays then run your comparison as shown above.

function checkForHint($var)
{
    foreach ($var as $value) {
        if(is_array($value))
        {
            checkForHint($value);
        } else {
            // Your code here
        }
    }
}

Something like that, perhaps.