Need help with returning an array

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
Hello everyone! I need help with returning an array of options from the following code. I can easily print a string with way I wanted like the following but I need to pass this to select options as an array.

Code:

//Get menu items
function menu_options($parent = 0, $level = 0)
    {
      $this->db->select('page_id, page_name, page_parent');
        $this->db->order_by('page_weight', 'ASC');
  $this->db->where('page_parent', $parent);
        $query=$this->db->get('pages');
        $result = $query->result();
        foreach($result as $item){
       echo str_repeat('-',$level)." ".$item->page_name."<br />";
  $this->menu_options($item->page_id, $level+1);
        }
    }

If I change above to this I get only parent items no child items at all.

Code:

//Get menu items
function menu_options($parent = 0, $level = 0)
    {
     $options[''] = 'Select Parent Menu';
     $this->db->select('page_id, page_name, page_parent');
        $this->db->order_by('page_weight', 'ASC');
        $this->db->where('page_parent', $parent);
        $query=$this->db->get('pages');
        $result = $query->result();
        foreach($result as $item){
            $options[$item->page_id] = str_repeat('-',$level)." ".$item->page_name;
     $this->menu_options($item->page_id, $level+1);
        }
        return $options;
    }

Please help!