hasChildren() works as documented here, but not as its name suggests.
The method does not return whether the current entry actually *has* children. It only returns whether the element's type is one that is able to have children.
This is a bit counterintuitive if you are processing empty arrays.
Example:
<?php
$data = array(
"element one" => array(true),
"element two" => array(),
"element three" => array(true),
);
$i = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(new RecursiveArrayIterator($data),RecursiveIteratorIterator::SELF_FIRST);
foreach($i as $key => $value)
{
$type = gettype($value);
$depth = $i->getDepth();
if($i->hasChildren()) {
echo "$depth: $key ($type) has children\n";
} else {
echo "$depth: $key ($type) has no children\n";
}
}
?>
Result:
0: element one (array) has children
1: 0 (boolean) has no children
0: element two (array) has children
0: element three (array) has children
1: 0 (boolean) has no children