Depender and Dependee variable reallignment

Question

I am not able to visualize the best way to achieve the below scenario:

I have extracting some data from REST API and based on that I assign values to 2 variables :
$Dependee
$Depender

for eg :
$Dependee=@('a','b')
$Depender=@('c')

this would be done in multiple iterations like :

1st iteration :
$Dependee=@('a','b')
$Depender=@('c')

2nd iteration:
$Dependee=@('a')
$Depender=@('x')

3rd iteration:
$Dependee=@('b')
$Depender=@('y')

4th iteration:
$Dependee=@('m')
$Depender=@('n')

etc

Now I need an output as below:

a is used in c,x
b is used in c,y
m is used in n

how can i achieve this as there are scenarios wherein it becomes a nested array.

Answer 1

This should work:

$dependancies = @{Dependee=@('a','b'); Depender=@('c')},  
                @{Dependee=@('a'); Depender=@('x')},  
                @{Dependee=@('b'); Depender=@('y')},  
                @{Dependee=@('m'); Depender=@('n')}  
  
$UsedIn = @{}  
ForEach ($dependency in $dependancies){  
    ForEach ($dee in $dependency.Dependee){  
        ForEach ($der in $dependency.Depender){  
                if ($UsedIn.ContainsKey($dee)){  
                    $UsedIn.$dee += $der  
                }  
                else{  
                    $UsedIn[$dee] = ,$der       # magic comma!  
                }  
            }  
    }  
}  
$UsedIn  

Answer 2

You can try creating hash table or dictionary on each dependee and store each matching depender as array.
e.g.

$htDependee = @{}  
  
#1st iteration :  
#$Dependee=@('a','b')  
#$Depender=@('c')  
$htDependee['a'] += ,'c'  
$htDependee['b'] += ,'c'  
  
#2nd iteration:  
#$Dependee=@('a')  
#$Depender=@('x')  
$htDependee['a'] += ,'x'  

etc

rgds,