Merge a multidimensional array

Question

I am creating a calendar for displaying films and their screening times.

I already have a quite convoluted mechanism of retrieving data from the "films" channel, where I have a supertable for "filmScreenings", which contain values for "theater" for name of the theater and "starts" which is a datetime for when the screening starts.

I am trying to create a multidimensional array for storing the films and screenings per theater. This is what I would like to accomplish:

screeningsForTheater  = {
  "Theater 1" : [
    { "film" : "Movie 1", "starts" : "09:00" },
    { "film" : "Movie 2", "starts" : "11:30" },
    { "film" : "Movie 3", "starts" : "13:30" }
  ],
  "Theater 2" : [
    { "film" : "Movie 4", "starts" : "09:30" },
    { "film" : "Movie 5", "starts" : "11:00" },
    { "film" : "Movie 6", "starts" : "13:00" },
    { "film" : "Movie 7", "starts" : "21:00" }
  ]
}

From here on I would be able to loop screenings displaying films and their screenings in the correct column:

Theater 1         Theater 2
Movie 1, 09:00    Movie 4, 09:30
Movie 2, 11:30    Movie 5, 11:30
Movie 3, 13:30    Movie 6, 13:00
                  Movie 7, 21:00

Here is the twig-code for trying to create this kind of array:

{% set screeningsForTheater = {} %}

{% for film in films %}
  {% for screening in film.screenings %}

  {% set starts = screening.starts %}
  {% set ends = "calc starts + length in minutes" %}

  {% set screeningsForTheater = screeningsForTheater | merge(
    { 
      (screening.theater.label) : [
        { "film" : film.title, "url" : film.url, "starts" : starts, "ends" : ends, "length" : film.length }
      ] 
    }
  ) %}

  {% endfor %}
{% endfor %}

What happens is that the values for keys "Theater 1" and "Theater 2" are being replaced as the loop progresses. In the end I have an array that looks like this:

screeningsForTheater = {
  "Theater 1" : [{ "film" : "Movie 3" ... }],
  "Theater 2" : [{ "film" : "Movie 7" ... }]
};

I cant quite understand how to correctly push screenings into screeningsForTheater[theater] - any help you could offer?

Running Craft 2.6 if it has anything to do with Twig syntax.

Answer 1

Ok, I managed to figure it out following directions on this page: Creating dynamic array and set keys

{% set filmData = { "film" : film.title, "url" : film.url, "starts" : starts, "ends" : ends, "length" : film.length } %}

{% if not attribute(screeningsForTheater, screening.theater.label) is defined %}

    {% set screeningsForTheater = screeningsForTheater | merge({ (screening.theater.label) : [filmData] }) %}

{% else %}

    {% set otherFilms = attribute(screeningsForTheater, screening.theater.label) %}
    {% set otherFilms = otherFilms | merge([filmData]) %}
    {% set screeningsForTheater = screeningsForTheater|merge({ (screening.theater.label) : otherFilms }) %}

{% endif %}

EDIT

However I realized I had to create another level to the array by including the date of the screening. This was the format needed:

screenings = {
  "22.3.2018" : {
    "Theater 1" : {
      "Movie 1" : { ... },
      "Movie 2" : { ... }
    },
    "Theater 2" : {
      "Movie 3" : { ... },
      "Movie 4" : { ... }
    }
  },
  "23.3.2018" : {
    "Theater 1" : {
      "Movie 5" : { ... },
      "Movie 6" : { ... }
    },
    "Theater 2" : {
      "Movie 7" : { ... },
      "Movie 8" : { ... }
    }
  }
}

I spent some time trying to create this kind of array using twig, but couldn't get the merge to work correctly.

I then created a plugin and a templateVariable to do the search and array stuff using PHP, which was a lot more comfortable, and got this working in no time.