README

A flexible PHP utility for rendering recursive/nested data structures with customizable output formatting.

Overview

Render Recursive provides a simple yet powerful way to traverse multidimensional arrays or hierarchical data and generate visualizations (typically HTML). It uses a callback-based approach that gives you full control over how each level and item in your data structure is rendered.

Installation

Install via Composer:

composer require grayspacecoding/render-recursive

Requirements

PHP >= 7.4

Basic Usage

use Grayspacecoding\RenderRecursive\RenderTiers;

$data = [
    'Item 1',
    'Item 2',
    [
        'Nested Item 1',
        'Nested Item 2',
        [
            'Deeply Nested Item'
        ]
    ],
    'Item 3'
];

$renderer = new RenderTiers();
$renderer->call($data);

This produces a nested <ul> list by default.

How It Works

The call() method accepts up to 5 parameters:

$data (required) - Your multidimensional array/data structure
$wrapperCallback (optional) - How to wrap the entire output
$arrayCallback (optional) - How to handle items with descendants (array items)
$itemCallback (optional) - How to handle leaf items (non-array items)
$childDeterminer (optional) - Logic to determine if an item has children

Customization

Custom Item Rendering

$renderer->call($data, null, null, function($item) {
    echo "<div class='item'>" . htmlspecialchars($item) . "</div>";
});

Custom Array (Branch) Rendering

$renderer->call($data, null, function($item) {
    echo "<div class='branch'>";
    // Recursion happens here automatically
    echo "</div>";
}, null);

Custom Wrapper

$renderer->call($data, function($content) {
    echo "<div class='container'>" . $content . "</div>";
});

Custom Child Determiner

By default, is_array() determines if an item has children. You can customize this:

$renderer->call($data, null, null, null, function($item) {
    // Custom logic, e.g., for objects with a 'children' property
    return is_object($item) && isset($item->children) && count($item->children) > 0;
});

Complete Example

$data = [
    'Home',
    'About',
    [
        'Team',
        'History',
        [
            'Timeline',
            'Milestones'
        ]
    ],
    'Contact'
];

$renderer = new RenderTiers();

$renderer->call(
    $data,
    // Wrapper
    function($content) {
        echo "<nav class='menu'>" . $content . "</nav>";
    },
    // Array callback
    function($item) {
        echo "<ul class='submenu'>";
        // Recursion happens automatically within the library
        echo "</ul>";
    },
    // Item callback
    function($item) {
        echo "<li><a href='#'>" . htmlspecialchars($item) . "</a></li>";
    }
);

Default Behaviors

If you don't provide callbacks, the following defaults are used:

Wrapper: Wraps output in <ul></ul>
Array items: Wraps in <ul></ul> and recurses
Leaf items: Wraps in <li></li> with HTML-escaped content
Child determination: Uses is_array()

Use Cases

Rendering nested navigation menus
Displaying hierarchical category trees
Visualizing organizational structures
Converting nested data to HTML lists
Building recursive tree components
Creating nested accordion interfaces

License

MIT

Authors

Parseley Devs (ops@parseley.net)

grayspacecoding / render-recursive

Maintainers

Package info

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