Finding cartesian product with PHP associative arrays
15:06 10 Jun 2011

Say that I have an array like the following:

Array
(
    [arm] => Array
        (
            [0] => A
            [1] => B
            [2] => C
        )
    [gender] => Array
        (
            [0] => Female
            [1] => Male
        )
    [location] => Array
        (
            [0] => Vancouver
            [1] => Calgary
        )
)

How can I find the cartesian product while preserving the keys of the outer associative array and using them in the inner ones? The result of the algorithm should be this:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [arm] => A
            [gender] => Female
            [location] => Vancouver
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [arm] => A
            [gender] => Female
            [location] => Calgary
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [arm] => A
            [gender] => Male
            [location] => Vancouver
        )

...etc.

I've looked up quite a number of cartesian product algorithms but I'm getting stuck on the specifics of how to preserve the associative keys. The current algorithm I am using gives numerical indices only:

    $result = array();
    foreach ($map as $a) {
        if (empty($result)) {
            $result = $a;
            continue;
        }
        $res = array();
        foreach ($result as $r) {
            foreach ($a as $v) {
                $res[] = array_merge((array)$r, (array)$v);
            }
        }
        $result = $res;
    }

    print_r($result);

Any help would be appreciated.

php algorithm associative-array cartesian-product