PHP parse function call with parameters from string - php

Question

What is the best way to parse a string containing a function call with parameters in PHP so that I have the function name and the parameters with their correct types. Example:
$string = "ask('Do you want to continue?', ['yes', 'no'])";
I don't want to directly call that function, so eval is not an option. I want to do something based on the function name and use the parameters with their correct types. Is there an easy way in PHP?
I expect something like this as a result:
$name = 'ask';
$parameters = ['Do you want to continue?', ['yes', 'no']];

Answer 1

Assuming that you want the arguments to be parsed to an array structure, you would still need to use eval (with all the precautions taken to ensure that the content is safe).
This code also assumes the format is as expected, i.e. it represents a valid function call, and the closing parenthesis is the final non-blank character:
$string = "ask('Do you want to continue?', ['yes', 'no'])";
$parts = array_map("trim", explode("(", substr(trim($string), 0, -1), 2));
$parts[1] = eval("return [$parts[1]];");
$parts will be:
[
"ask",
[
"Do you want to continue?",
["yes", "no"]
]
]

Answer 2

I think you should use one good library to parse PHP code.
that is some example of that kind of library
use PhpParser\Error;
use PhpParser\NodeDumper;
use PhpParser\ParserFactory;
$code = <<<'CODE'
<?php
function test($foo)
{
var_dump($foo);
}
CODE;
$parser = (new ParserFactory)->create(ParserFactory::PREFER_PHP7);
try {
$ast = $parser->parse($code);
} catch (Error $error) {
echo "Parse error: {$error->getMessage()}\n";
return;
}
$dumper = new NodeDumper;
echo $dumper->dump($ast) . "\n";
https://github.com/nikic/PHP-Parser