How can I create a recursive PHP function to generate a hierarchical menu tree from a MySQL database table?

Echoing Menu Tree with Recursive Function

To generate a hierarchical menu tree from a database table using a recursive function, consider the following approach:

Problem:

You wish to create a recursive function that extracts a hierarchical menu tree from a MySQL database.

Situation:

The table contains columns:

• id
• root (ID of the parent category, or null for root categories)
• name

Expected HTML Output:

<li><a href="#"><p class="Tier0">Datori</p></a>
    <ul style="display: block">
        <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier1">Cookies</p></a></li>
        <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier1">Events</p></a></li>
        <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier1">Forms</p></a></li>
        <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier1">Games</p></a></li>
        <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier1">Images</p></a>
            <ul>
                <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier2">CSS</p></a></li>
                <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier2">JavaScript</p></a></li>
                <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier2">JQuery</p></a></li>
            </ul>
        </li>
        <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier1">Navigations</p></a>
            <ul>
                <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier2">CSS</p></a></li>
                <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier2">JavaScript</p></a></li>
                <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier2">JQuery</p></a></li>
            </ul>
        </li>
        <li><a href="#"><p class="Tier1">Tabs</p></a></li>
    </ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#"><p class="Tier0">Washing Machines</p></a></li>

Proposed PHP Function:

<code class="php">function recurse($categories, $parent = null, $level = 0)
{
    $ret = '<ul>';
    foreach($categories as $index => $category)
    {
        if($category['root'] == $parent)
        {
            $ret .= '<li><a href="#"><p class="Tier' . $level . '">' . $category['name'] . '</p></a>';
            $ret .= $this->recurse($categories, $category['id'], $level+1);
            $ret .= '</li>';
        }
    }
    return $ret . '</ul>';
}</code>

Usage:

1. Fetch the category list into a multi-dimensional array.
2. Call the recurse function with the category array and the output will be the desired HTML menu tree.

Additional Considerations:

• Prevent empty UL tags by checking child count before appending them.
• Consider using a database column to store child count for efficiency.

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