Dynamic Multi-Level Drop Down Menu

[maxudaskin]

Hi guys, I'm still not having any luck with coming up with an idea of how to make my multi-level drop down menu work with items from a database. I don't necessarily need code, but an idea of how to make it work, so any ideas are welcome.

 

The table:

Column Descriptions:

id      - The unique id

label    - The text to display

link    - The link to be used

relation - I cannot remember why I wanted that... just disregard it

parent  - The parent item's id (0 for no parent)

sort    - A sort number for the item (ascending)

active  - 0 for false, 1 for true (not implemented yet, will add a WHERE `active` = 1 into the sql later)

depth    - How many parent items there are

 

Now, here's what it has to do (the class):

[*]Grab items from the database (sorted by depth, parent, and sort)

[*]Place the children in a child array of the parents (or however it can be sorted)

[*]Implode the array and turn it into an html menu with the below structure

 

Menu HTML Structure

<div id="menu">
  <ul>
    <li><h2>Level 1 A</h2>
      <ul>
        <li><a href="?r=level2/a">Level 2 A</a>
          <ul>
            <li><a href="?r=level3/a">Level 3 A</a></li>
            <li><a href="?r=level3/b">Level 3 B</a></li>
          </ul>
        </li>
      </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a href="?r=level1/b"><h2>Level 1 B</h2></a></li>
  </ul>
</div>

 

And here is the code I have so far, but I can't figure out how to get the children into the parent array, or at least sort it so that I can achieve the above HTML structure.

 

Thank you in advance for your help, and as I said above, I don't necessarily need code, but an idea of how to make it work, so any ideas are welcome.

[tobimichigan]

It seems as if you're using short-tags, r u sure your ini.config recognizes that? Besides ur sql query has to prefectly draw a uniform and persistent data from the base. U should check this out too...

[maxudaskin]

It seems as if you're using short-tags, r u sure your ini.config recognizes that? Besides ur sql query has to prefectly draw a uniform and persistent data from the base. U should check this out too...

I just used a short tag for the links because I didn't want to write out a full url for the example. The sql is written to draw uniform and persistent data from the database, but I forgot to include it.

<?php
/**
* Menu Class
*
* This file is used to create a dynamic menu based on the user's permissions and status
* @author Max Udaskin <max.udaskin@gmail.com>
* @version 1.0
* @package navigation
*/

/**
* @ignore
*/
if(!defined('ALLOW_ACCESS')) { // Do not allow the file to be accessed by itself
    die('Restricted File.');
}

require_once("Database.php");

class Menu
{
    protected $login;
    protected $all_rows;
    protected $menu_items;
    protected $html = NULL;

    /**
     * The constructor
     * @param Login $login
     */
    function _construct()
    {
    }

    /**
     * Get All Items
     * Retrieves all database menu items
     */
    private function getAllItems()
    {
        $sql = 'SELECT * FROM `menu` ORDER BY `depth` ASC, `parent` ASC, `sort` ASC';
        $database = new Database('default');
        $database->connect();
        $database->query($sql);
        $query = $database->getLastQuery();

        while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query))
        {
            $this->all_rows[] = $row;
        }
    }
    /*
     * Selects the menu items that are appropriate for the user
     */
    private function chooseMenuItems()
    {
        $this->menu_items = $this->all_rows;
    }

    /**
     * Formats the menu items for the HTML output
     */
    private function formatMenuItems()
    {
        $menu = array();
        $menu_imploded = '';
        
        for($i = 0; $i < count($this->menu_items); $i++) {
            if($this->menu_items[$i]['parent'] == 0) {
                $menu[] = $this->parseItem($this->menu_items[$i]);
            } else {
                $parent = $this->search($menu, $this->menu_items[$i]['parent']);
                print_r($parent);
            }
        }

        $menu_imploded = $this->combineMultiArray('', $menu);
        
        echo '<div id="menu">';
        echo $menu_imploded;
        echo '</div>';
    }

    /**
     * Searches an array and it's sub arrays for a defined value ($for)
     * @param array $array
     * @param mixed $for
     */
    private function search($array, $for)
    {
        
    }

    /**
     * Gets the array item and returns it
     * @param array $arr The array to insert the child into
     * @param string $string The 
     * @param array $child
     */
    function insertIntoArray($arr, $string, $child)
    {
        preg_match_all('/\[([^\]]*)\]/', $string, $arr_matches, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

        $return = $arr;
        foreach($arr_matches[1] as $dimension)
        {
            $return = $return[$dimension];
        }

        return $return;
    }

    /**
     * Parses HTML for the item, as an array
     * @param array $item
     */
    private function parseItem($item)
    {
        if($item['parent'] == 0) {
            $h2_s = '<h2>';
            $h2_e = '</h2>';
        } else {
            $h2_s = '';
            $h2_e = '';
        }
        $return[0] = '<ul><li>' . $h2_s . '<a href="';
        $return[0] .= $item['link'] . '">';
        $return[0] .= $item['label'] . '</a>' . $h2_e;
        $return[1] = false; // Children
        $return[2] = '</li></ul>';
        $return['parent'] = $item['parent'];

        return $return;
    }

    /**
     * Puts all of the HTML in the array together
     */
    private function produceHtml()
    {
        $this->getAllItems();
        $this->chooseMenuItems();
        $this->formatMenuItems();
    }

    /**
     * Get HTML
     * @return string The HTML menu
     */
    public function getHtml()
    {
        $this->produceHtml();
        return $this->html;
    }
    
    /**
     * Combine Multi Array
     * Takes any array of any dimension and combines it into a single string
     * @param unknown_type $array
     */
    private function combineMultiArray($glue, $array)
    {   
        $return = '';
        foreach($array as $piece) {
            if(is_array($piece)) {
                $return .= $glue . $this->combineMultiArray($glue, $piece);
            }
            $return .= $glue . $piece;
        }
        
        return $return;
    }
}

 

[tobimichigan]

Exellcent code...I like the way u implement your class with a good constructor besides your array seems ok 2 me.. but

private function getAllItems()
    {
        $sql = 'SELECT * FROM `menu` ORDER BY `depth` ASC, `parent` ASC, `sort` ASC';//try and re-query this TROUBLE SPOT  may be
         $sql = 'SELECT * FROM `menu` where clause=$clause;//better yet specify with an existing valid variable eg, $_session
        $database = new Database('default');
        $database->connect();
        $database->query($sql);
        $query = $database->getLastQuery();

        while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query))
        {
            $this->all_rows[] = $row;
        }
    }

 

the select statement seems clumsy..I've corrected but modify that region as best suites you.

[maxudaskin]

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say that the query is clumbsy?

 

It does exactly what I want it to do, and it's not going to have to change based on a user or settings because the menu will be displayed in the same order every time.