Reaching xArray members

"Reaching" xArray members means accessing values of nested members by pattern expressions. You can reach either single (scalar) or multiple values (other xArrays).

Patterns

Patterns can be either deterministic or non-deterministic. Deterministic patterns describe he exact position of the xArray member value you want to access. For an example, these are all deterministic patterns:

0.User.id
1.User.id
2.User.id

Non-deterministic patterns describe the position of values you need relative to another member. For an example, these are all non-deterministic patterns:

{n}.test.blah
{n}.User.id

Reaching single xArray members

You must provide a deterministic pattern in order to reach a single (scalar) value. For an example, suppose we have this xArray:

$a = array(
    array ('User'=>array(
        'id' => 5,
        'name' => 'Ninja',
        'pass' => 'nnj',
    )),
    array ('User'=>array(
        'id' => 12,
        'name' => 'Fat',
        'pass' => 'ninja',
    )),
    array ('User'=>array(
        'id' => 1,
        'name' => 'Ve',
        'pass' => 'bailovity',
    )),
);
$xa = new xArray($a);

To reach the "name" value from the second "User" array ("Fat"), you'd use this pattern:

// 1.User.name = "Fat"
xa->reach('1.User.name');

Reaching multiple xArray members

Using the same xArray as before, you can reach "name" values from all "User" arrays with this pattern:

// {n}.User.name = xArray("Ninja", "Fat", "Ve")
xa->reach('{n}.User.name');