Recursive Array Exploding

use normal string parsing to get 3 arrays which correspond to their groupings. I think you can figure it out with explode()

Then generate the "cartesian product" of the 3 arrays

$iterators = array(
    new ArrayIterator(array('cat', 'dog', 'fish'))
  , new ArrayIterator(array('drinks'))
  , new ArrayIterator(array('milk', 'water'))
);
$citer = new CartesianProductIterator($iterators);
foreach ($citer as $combo) {
    printf("[%s]\n", join(',', $combo));
}

Using

class CartesianProductIterator implements Iterator {
    protected $iterators;

    function __construct(array $iters) {
        $this->iterators = $iters;
    }

    function rewind() {
        foreach ($this->iterators as $it) {
            $it->rewind();
        }
    }

    function current() {
        $values = array();
        foreach ($this->iterators as $it) {
            $values[] = $it->current();
        }
        return $values;
    }

    function key() {
        return null;
    }

    function next() {
        /*      
        loop them in reverse, but exclude first
        why? example, odometer: 55199
        you always check the rightmost digit first to see if incrementing it would roll it over and need to be "rewound" to 0, 
        which causes the digit to the left to increase as well, which may also cause it to roll over as well, and so on...
        looping in reverse operates from right column to the left.
        we dont rewind the first column because if the leftmost column is on its last element and needs to roll over
        then this iterator has reached its end, and so rewind() needs to be explicitly called 
        */
        for ($i = count($this->iterators) - 1; $i > 0; --$i) {
            $it = $this->iterators[$i];
            $it->next();
            if ($it->valid()) {
                // were done advancing because we found a column that didnt roll over
                return;
            } else {
                $it->rewind();
            }
        }

        //if execution reached here, then all of the columns have rolled over, so we must attempt to roll over the left most column
        $this->iterators[0]->next();
    }

    function valid() {
        return $this->iterators[0]->valid();
    }
}