PHP tree structure for categories and sub categories without looping a query

This does the job:

$items = array(
        (object) array('id' => 42, 'parent_id' => 1),
        (object) array('id' => 43, 'parent_id' => 42),
        (object) array('id' => 1,  'parent_id' => 0),
);

$childs = array();

foreach($items as $item)
    $childs[$item->parent_id][] = $item;

foreach($items as $item) if (isset($childs[$item->id]))
    $item->childs = $childs[$item->id];

$tree = $childs[0];

print_r($tree);

This works by first indexing categories by parent_id. Then for each category, we just have to set category->childs to childs[category->id], and the tree is built !

So, now $tree is the categories tree. It contains an array of items with parent_id=0, which themselves contain an array of their childs, which themselves …

Output of print_r($tree):

stdClass Object
(
    [id] => 1
    [parent_id] => 0
    [childs] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [id] => 42
                    [parent_id] => 1
                    [childs] => Array
                        (
                            [0] => stdClass Object
                                (
                                    [id] => 43
                                    [parent_id] => 42
                                )

                        )

                )

        )

)

So here is the final function:

function buildTree($items) {

    $childs = array();

    foreach($items as $item)
        $childs[$item->parent_id][] = $item;

    foreach($items as $item) if (isset($childs[$item->id]))
        $item->childs = $childs[$item->id];

    return $childs[0];
}

$tree = buildTree($items);

---

Here is the same version, with arrays, which is a little tricky as we need to play with references (but works equally well):

$items = array(
        array('id' => 42, 'parent_id' => 1),
        array('id' => 43, 'parent_id' => 42),
        array('id' => 1,  'parent_id' => 0),
);

$childs = array();
foreach($items as &$item) $childs[$item['parent_id']][] = &$item;
unset($item);

foreach($items as &$item) if (isset($childs[$item['id']]))
        $item['childs'] = $childs[$item['id']];
unset($item);

$tree = $childs[0];

So the array version of the final function:

function buildTree($items) {
    $childs = array();

    foreach($items as &$item) $childs[(int)$item['parent_id']][] = &$item;

    foreach($items as &$item) if (isset($childs[$item['id']]))
            $item['childs'] = $childs[$item['id']];
   
    return $childs[0]; // Root only.
}

$tree = buildTree($items);