How can I "dual" implode a nested array?

Question

I have a nested array (only one level deep) like this:

$a = array(
  array( 1, 2, 3 ),
  array( 2, 4, 6 ),
  array( 5, 10, 15 )
  );

And I'd like a nice way to implode() it to this form:

1,2,3|2,4,6|5,10,15

I can run a loop to implode(',',...) each array in $a (storing those strings in a temp), and then implode('|',...) that temporary array, but it seems like I should be able to do this more concisely* with PHP.

Thanks in advance,
Cheers!

*By "more concisely" I mean, without writing a loop (so, just using function calls)

Hatbox

Is there a reason you want this custom-looking flattened structure? Because JSON and serialized PHP both let you turn a complex data structure into a parse-able string. – Kisor

I'm generating URIs for the Google Charts API. – Hatbox

Ah. That's a good reason! Have you looked at gChartPhp? code.google.com/p/gchartphp – Kisor

Answer 1

I'm late to the game here (by SO standards) but you could literally "dual" implode.

implode('|', array_map('implode', array_fill(0, count($a), ','), $a))

Dibromide

@Dibromide after this implode i get this type data ...... valueA(1),valueB(1)|valueA(2),valueB(2) and i need to store valueA(1),valueA(2) in one column and valueB(1),valueB(2) in second column is this possible – Trescott

@DanishIqbal don't ask random questions in comments, please. – Dibromide

@DanishIqbal it is not part of the question above, even if it is tangentially related. Even if your question were related, don't ask questions in the comments. – Dibromide

Answer 2

function implodeComas($arr)
{
    return implode(',',$arr);
}
$out = implode('|', array_map('implodeComas', $a));

echo $out;

Better one:

function myImplode($ret,$current)
{
    if($ret)
        $ret .= '|';

    return $ret .= implode(',',$current);
}

echo array_reduce($a, 'myImplode');

Agama

Great idea. The only caveat is that it looks like array_reduce() strips elements from the back of the array (reversing the subarrays in the output). – Hatbox

Answer 3

Here is a really dirty way:

str_replace('],[', '|', trim(json_encode($a), '[]'));

Rhodes