How to output numbering correctly when building a hierarchy tree in php?

Question

PHP

Good day, there is a code for building a hierarchy tree written in php

function rec($search, $num)
                {
                    global $response;
                    $i = 0;
                    foreach ($response as $row) {
                        $i++;
                        if ($row["parent"]== $search || $search == "") {
                            print "<a href =\"article/?$row[id]\" class=\"linkList\">$num.$i. $row[title] </a>";
                        }
                        if($row["child"] != "0"){
                            rec($row["id"], $num.".".$i);
                        }else{
                            $search = "";

                        }

                    }

                }
                rec("", "1");

which basically works except for the numbering output, at the moment the output looks like this , but it should look like this,
please tell me how to do it. I'm not very good at php myself.

Answer 1

Isn't that right for a start?
But still, probably, there will be problems with nesting. Here it is not necessary to be "strong" in php, but in programming in general.

Answer 2

1. Everything is bad with the incoming data.
2. You are bad at programming.
3. Because of 1 and 2, everything is bad with your code.
Organize the data correctly and conveniently, and then write the code.