I have files with lines in it where i want to create array with a key and value
file1 has for example:
thisisline = aline
thisisalsoaline = oke
whereiamaline = check
file2 has
thisisline = aline
thisisalsoaline = oke
whereiamaline = checker
what i am trying to create but no luck to have a result which is :(
thisisline => aline
thisisalsoaline => oke
whereiamaline => check
i tried with explode but then it was like
[0] => thisisline = aline
the endgoal is to have 2 files to compare with array_diff_key so that i can identify the line whereiamaline = checker
Could somebody point me to the correct direction?
Thank you
Your files look like ini-files. php already has parse_ini_file function, which will return key => value array.
Next, correct function is array_diff_assoc:
$a = parse_ini_file('file1');
$b = parse_ini_string('file2');
print_r(array_diff_assoc($a, $b));
Because array_diff_key returns keys which are in first array, but not in second, which is not your case.
You can do it with explode function with delimeter =, like:
$finall_array = array();
$handle = fopen("file.txt", "r");
if ($handle) {
while (($line = fgets($handle)) !== false) {
$le = explode("=",$line);
$finall_array[$le[0]] = $le[1];
}
fclose($handle);
} else {
// here goes error file opeping
}
Then just use $final_array like your output
You can do it this way.
foreach(file("file1.txt") as $line) {
$pieces = explode("=", $line);
//Do whatever you want to do with $pieces here. $pieces[0] and $pieces[1]
//Trim the values of $pieces too.
}
Another way is:
for each(file("file1.txt") as $line) {
$res[] = array_map('trim', explode('=', $line));
}
This one will directly populate the $res[] array with arrays of each line (which are trimmed)
So i used the parse_in_file together with the arra_diff_assoc and then it is
<?php
$file1 = parse_ini_file("master_manager.txt");
$file2 = parse_ini_file("master_manager1.txt");
echo "<pre>";
$myarray = array_diff_assoc($file1, $file2);
foreach ($myarray as $key => $value){
echo $key." = ".$value."\n"; }
echo "</pre>";
but then if a line contains false or true it gives a 1 or nothing (null) how to prevent that? –
Related
Is it possible in php to convert this kind of data
ABANO TERME A001
ABBADIA CERRETO A004
ABBADIA LARIANA A005
ABBADIA SAN SALVATORE A006
ABBASANTA A007
ABBATEGGIO A008
ABBIATEGRASSO A010
to an associated array where in the first column are keys and in the second column are values?
$handle = fopen(path\to\file\filename, "r");
$result_arr = array();
while(($filesop = fgets($handle)) !== false)
{
$line_arr = explode(" ", $filesop);
$value = end($line_arr);
unset($line_arr[array_search($value, $line_arr)]);
$key = implode(" ", $line_arr);
$result_arr[trim($key] = trim($value);
}
print_r($result_arr);
Store in the text file like this (separated by commas):
ABANO TERME,A001
ABBADIA CERRETO,A004
ABBADIA LARIANA,A005
ABBADIA SAN SALVATORE,A006
ABBASANTA,A007
ABBATEGGIO,A008
ABBIATEGRASSO,A010
Solution to read file:
$handle = fopen(path\to\file\filename, "r");
$result_arr = array();
while(($filesop = fgets($handle)) !== false)
{
$line_arr = explode(",", $filesop);
$value = end($line_arr);
unset($line_arr[array_search($value, $line_arr)]);
$key = implode(",", $line_arr);
$result_arr[trim($key] = trim($value);
}
print_r($result_arr);
$txt = file_get_contents('foo.txt');
$arr=array_values(array_filter(explode(' ',$txt)));
$new=[];
for($i=0; $i<count($arr)-1;$i++){
$new[$arr[$i]]=$arr[++$i];
}
print_r($new);
One solution for this particular data would be:
<?php
$data = file_get_contents('data.txt')
//use regular expressions to parse whole file at once
preg_match_all("/([^\s]+\s?[^\s]+?)\s+(.\d+)$/m", $data, $m);
//and combine results from result array ($m)
//first entry - $m[0] contains whole lines thats why I dont use it here
//second entry - $m[1] - data from first brackets is an array key
//third entry - $m[2] - is a value (both are separated by some number of spaces - \s+)
$array = array_combine($m[1], $m[2]);
print_r($array);
?>
output:
Array
(
[ABETONE] => A012
[ABRIOLA] => A013
[ACATE] => A014
[ACCADIA] => A015
)
of course, as colleagues above pointed out, this depends on where data came from, and if this particular set is representative.
I am reading a txt file on the following way:
$handle = fopen($captionTextFile, "r");
if ($handle) {
while (($line = fgets($handle)) !== false) {
echo ($line);
}
fclose($handle);
}
// Output
IMAG0986.jpg|Title something 1 here|<b>Description</b><br />You can use HTML as you can see!
IMAG0988.jpg|Title something 2 here|<b>Description</b><br />You can use HTML as you can see!
etc...
Now I want to store only the values between the first | by line in a php array. Example of what I intend to have:
$json = '{"IMAG0986.jpg": "Title something 1 here",
"IMAG0988.jpg": "Title something 2 here"}';
In order to access this array later in this way:
$obj = json_decode($json);
print $obj->{'IMAG0986.jpg'}; // print: "Title something 1 here"
The problem that I'm having is how do I pass the values from the lines to the array? any help please?
Use file() to read the file lines to an array, then use explode() with | delimiter and add the 1st part as key and 2nd as value to an array, finally use json_encode().
Something like:
<?php
$captionTextFile = "test.pipe";
$arrayFinal = array();
$lines = file($captionTextFile);
foreach($lines as $line) {
$array = explode("|", $line);
$arrayFinal[$array[0]] = $array[1];
}
print_r(json_encode($arrayFinal));
//{"IMAG0986.jpg":"Title something 1 here","IMAG0988.jpg":"Title something 2 here"}
//If you don't need json, just access the array by key:
echo $arrayFinal['IMAG0986.jpg'];
//Title something 1 here
You can explode() the lines into keys and values in an object to achieve that desired JSON result.
$data = new stdClass();
$handle = fopen($captionTextFile, "r");
if ($handle) {
while (($line = fgets($handle)) !== false) {
$row = explode('|', $line);
$data->{$row[0]} = row[1];
}
fclose($handle);
}
json_encode($data);
I am trying to convert CSV file to JSON using PHP.
Here is my code
<?php
date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
$today = date("n_j"); // Today is 1/23/2015 -> $today = 1_23
$file_name = $today.'.CSV'; // My file name is 1_23.csv
$file_path = 'C:\\Users\\bheng\\Desktop\\qb\\'.$file_name;
$file_handle = fopen($file_path, "r");
$result = array();
if ($file_handle !== FALSE) {
$column_headers = fgetcsv($file_handle);
foreach($column_headers as $header) {
$result[$header] = array();
}
while (($data = fgetcsv($file_handle)) !== FALSE) {
$i = 0;
foreach($result as &$column) {
$column[] = $data[$i++];
}
}
fclose($file_handle);
}
// print_r($result); // I see all data(s) except the header
$json = json_encode($result);
echo $json;
?>
print_r($result); // I see all data(s)
Then I json_encode($result); and tried to display it, but nothing is displaying on the screen at all. All I see is the blank screen, and 0 error message.
Am I doing anything wrong ? Can someone help me ?
Added Result of print_r($result);
Array (
[Inventory] => Array (
[0] => bs-0468R(20ug)
[1] => bs-1338R(1ml)
[2] => bs-1557G(no bsa)
[3] => bs-3295R(no BSA)
[4] => bs-0730R-Cy5"
[5] => bs-3889R-PE-Cy7"
[6] => 11033R
[7] => 1554R-A647
[8] => 4667
[9] => ABIN731018
[10] => Anti-DBNL protein
.... more ....
Try like this:
$file="1_23.csv";
$csv= file_get_contents($file);
$array = array_map("str_getcsv", explode("\n", $csv));
$json = json_encode($array);
print_r($json);
data.csv
Game,Skill
Treasure Hunter,pilipala
Rocket Launcher,bibobibo
Rocket Engine,hehehohoho
To convert with column name, this is how I do it.
csv2json.php
<?php
if (($handle = fopen("data.csv", "r")) !== FALSE) {
$csvs = [];
while(! feof($handle)) {
$csvs[] = fgetcsv($handle);
}
$datas = [];
$column_names = [];
foreach ($csvs[0] as $single_csv) {
$column_names[] = $single_csv;
}
foreach ($csvs as $key => $csv) {
if ($key === 0) {
continue;
}
foreach ($column_names as $column_key => $column_name) {
$datas[$key-1][$column_name] = $csv[$column_key];
}
}
$json = json_encode($datas);
fclose($handle);
print_r($json);
}
The output result
[
{
"Game": "Treasure Hunter",
"Skill": "pilipala"
},
{
"Game": "Rocket Launcher",
"Skill": "bibobibo"
},
{
"Game": "Rocket Engine",
"Skill": "hehehohoho"
}
]
You can try this way too.
<?php
function csvtojson($file,$delimiter)
{
if (($handle = fopen($file, "r")) === false)
{
die("can't open the file.");
}
$csv_headers = fgetcsv($handle, 4000, $delimiter);
$csv_json = array();
while ($row = fgetcsv($handle, 4000, $delimiter))
{
$csv_json[] = array_combine($csv_headers, $row);
}
fclose($handle);
return json_encode($csv_json);
}
$jsonresult = csvtojson("./doc.csv", ",");
echo $jsonresult;
I ran into a similar problem, I ended up using this to recursively convert the data to UTF-8 on an array before encoding to JSON.
function utf8_converter($array)
{
array_walk_recursive($array, function(&$item, $key){
if(!mb_detect_encoding($item, 'utf-8', true)){
$item = utf8_encode($item);
}
});
return $array;
}
From:
http://nazcalabs.com/blog/convert-php-array-to-utf8-recursively/
This issue is pretty old by now, but hoping this helps someone, as it seemed like the simplest example I found, and I know this is a pretty common thing devs might need to do as a beginner, and lots of answers gloss over the magic.
$file = storage_path('app/public/waitlist_users_test.csv'); //--> laravel helper, but you can use any path here
function csv_to_json($file)
{
// file() loads each row as an array value, then array map uses the 'str_getcsv' callback to
$csv = array_map('str_getcsv', file($file));
// array_walk - "walks" through each item of the array and applies the call back function. the & in "&row" means that alterations to $row actually change the original $csv array, rather than treating it as immutable (*sort of immutable...)
array_walk($csv, function(&$row) use ($csv) {
// array_combine takes the header row ($csv[0]) and uses it as array keys for each column in the row
$row = array_combine($csv[0], $row);
});
array_shift($csv); # removes now very redundant column header --> contains {'col_1':'col_1', 'col_2':'col_2'...}
$json = json_encode($csv);
return $json;
}
There's a lot of magic going on with these functions that accept callback functions, that didn't seem to be explained thoroughly above. I'm self taught and have been programming for years, and find that it's often just glossed over without detailing how callbacks work, so I'll dive in just a little bit for the array_map('str_getcsv', file($file)) function - if you pass a function you've written, or inbuilt php function name as a string, it will take the value of whatever (in this case - array) element is being evaluated by the calling function (in this case array_map), and pass that to the callback function without the need to explicitly pass in a variable - super helpful once you get the hang of it, but I find it's not explained thoroughly very often which leaves beginners to not understand why it works, just that it works.
I've linked most of these above, but here's a little more information:
str-getcsv do? Array Walk Array Map Callables/Callbacks
as #MoonCactus noted, the file() function only loads 1 row at a time which helps save on memory usage for large .csv files.
Also, some other posts reference using explode - why not use explode() instead of str_getcsv() to parse rows? Because explode() would not treat possible enclosured parts of string or escaped characters correctly.
Hope somebody finds this helpful!
If you are converting a dynamic CSV file, you can pass the URL through a parameter (url=http://example.com/some.csv) and it will show you the most up-to-date version:
<?php
// Lets the browser and tools such as Postman know it's JSON
header( "Content-Type: application/json" );
// Get CSV source through the 'url' parameter
if ( isset( $_GET['url'] ) ) {
$csv = explode( "\n", file_get_contents( $_GET['url'] ) );
$index = str_getcsv( array_shift( $csv ) );
$json = array_map(
function ( $e ) use ( $index ) {
return array_combine( $index, str_getcsv( $e ) );
}, $csv
);
}
else {
$json = "Please set the path to your CSV by using the '?url=' query string.";
}
// Output JSON
echo json_encode( $json );
Alternate solution that uses similar method as #Whirlwind's solution but returns a more standard JSON result (with named fields for each object/record):
// takes a string of CSV data and returns a JSON representing an array of objects (one object per row)
function convert_csv_to_json($csv_data){
$flat_array = array_map("str_getcsv", explode("\n", $csv_data));
// take the first array item to use for the final object's property labels
$columns = $flat_array[0];
for ($i=1; $i<count($flat_array)-1; $i++){
foreach ($columns as $column_index => $column){
$obj[$i]->$column = $flat_array[$i][$column_index];
}
}
$json = json_encode($obj);
return $json; // or just return $obj if that's a more useful return value
}
The accepted answer uses file_get_contents() to read the entire file as a string in memory, and then explode() it to make it an array.
But it can be made faster, smaller in memory, and more useful:
function ReadCsv($fn)
{
$lines= file($fn); // read file directly as an array of lines
array_pop($lines); // you can remove the last empty line (if required)
$json= json_encode(array_map("str_getcsv", $lines), JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK);
print_r($json);
}
Nb: I used JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK here to avoid numbers being double quoted into strings. It also reduces the output size and it usually helps javascript on the other side (e.g. to compute or plot the data). Beware of phone numbers though!
I liked #ian-d-miller's solution for converting the data into a key / value style format, but I kept running into issues with his code.
Here's what worked for me:
function convert_CSV_to_JSON($csv_data){
// convert csv data to an array
$data = array_map("str_getcsv", explode("\n", $csv_data));
// use the first row as column headers
$columns = $data[0];
// create array to hold our converted data
$json = [];
// iterate through each row in the data
foreach ($data as $row_index => $row_data) {
// skip the first row, since it's the headers
if($row_index === 0) continue;
// make sure we establish each new row as an array
$json[$row_index] = [];
// iterate through each column in the row
foreach ($row_data as $column_index => $column_value) {
// get the key for each entry
$label = $columns[$column_index];
// add this column's value to this row's index / column's key
$json[$row_index][$label] = $column_value;
}
}
// bam
return $json;
}
Usage:
// as is
$json = convert_CSV_to_JSON($csv);
// encoded
$json = json_encode($json);
Something that i've made for myself and may be useful for others :)
This will convert CSV into JSON array with objects (key => value pair).
function csv2json($a, $e = true) {
$b = ["\r\n","\r","\n",];
foreach ($b as $c => $d) {
$a = explode($d, $a);
$a = isset($b[$c + 1]) ? implode($b[$c + 1], $a) : implode(PHP_EOL, $a);
}
// Convert to CSV
$a = array_map("str_getcsv", explode(PHP_EOL, $a));
// Get the first part of the array as the keys
$a = [
"keys" => array_shift($a),
"rows" => $a,
"row" => null,
];
// Define JSON
$b = [];
foreach ($a["rows"] as $a["row"]) {
$a["row"] = [ "csv" => $a["row"], "json" => (object)[], ];
for ($c = 0; $c < count($a["row"]["csv"]); $c++) {
$a["row"]["csv"][$c] = [#json_decode($a["row"]["csv"][$c]),$a["row"]["csv"][$c]];
// Switch from string to booleans, numbers and others
$a["row"]["csv"][$c] = isset($a["row"]["csv"][$c][0]) ? $a["row"]["csv"][$c][0] : $a["row"]["csv"][$c][1];
// Push it back
$a["row"]["json"]->{$a["keys"][$c]} = $a["row"]["csv"][$c];
}
$a["row"] = $a["row"]["json"];
$b[] = $a["row"];
unset($a["row"]);
}
// $e will be "return"
$e = $e ? json_encode($b) : $b;
// Unset useless variables
unset($a, $b, $c, $d);
return $e;
}
How to use?
If you want to return the JSON as a string, Leave it as default.
If you want to return the JSON as an object / array, set the second parameter to false.
Examples:
$csv = "name,age,gender
John Doe,35,male
Jane Doe,32,female";
echo csv2json($csv, true); // Or without the second parameter, just csv2json($csv)
The example above (^) will return a JSON stringified, Like this:
[{"name":"John Doe","age":35,"gender":"male"},{"name":"Jane Doe","age":32,"gender":"female"}]
and the example below:
var_dump(csv2json($csv, false));
will return a JSON array with these objects:
array(2) {
[0]=>
object(stdClass)#1 (3) {
["name"]=>
string(8) "John Doe"
["age"]=>
int(35)
["gender"]=>
string(4) "male"
}
[1]=>
object(stdClass)#2 (3) {
["name"]=>
string(8) "Jane Doe"
["age"]=>
int(32)
["gender"]=>
string(6) "female"
}
}
public function CsvToJson($fileContent){
//Convert CSV To Json and Return
$all_rows = array();
$newhead =array();
//Extract csv data to array on \n
$array = explode("\n",$fileContent);
//Extract csv header to array on 0 Index
$header = explode(",",$array[0]);
//Remove Header Row From Main Data Array
array_shift($array);
//Extract All Arrays To Saperate Orders
foreach($array as $arr){
$sliced = explode(",",$arr);
array_push($all_rows,$sliced);
}
//Extract All Orders Element To Saperate Array Item
foreach($all_rows as $row){
$sliced = explode(",",$arr);
array_push($all_rows,$sliced);
}
//Remove \r From Header Elements
foreach($header as $key=>$value){
$sliced = str_replace ("\r", "", $value);
array_push($newhead,$sliced);
}
//COMBINE Header as KEY And Row Element As Value
$arrrr = array();
foreach($all_rows as $row) {
//Remove Last Element of ROW if it is \r (Break given in css file for next row)
$count= count($row);
if ($row[$count-1] == "\r") {
array_splice($row, count($row) - 1, 1);
}
//CHECK IF HADER COUNT == ROW COUNT
if (count($header) == count($row)) {
array_push($arrrr,array_combine($newhead,$row));
}
}
//CONVERT ARRAY TO JSON
$json = json_encode($arrrr);
//Remove backslasesh from json key and and value to remove \r
$clean = stripslashes($json);
//CONVERT ARRAY TO JSON AGAIN FOR EXPORT
$jsonagain = json_encode($clean);
return $jsonagain;
}
Let say i want to read a text file using php.
Now my text file contain
User=Test
Age=18
Gender=F
User=Test2
Age=34
Gender=M
and following like that.
Now let say i want to use php to read the text file and find only value of User= and display it.
What is the easiest way to accomplish this?
Thank you.
This may be more than you're looking for, but if you're looking to parse a text file
and you're not tied to a specificformat you should use one that php has inbuilt support for. To me the two most obvious options are XML and JSON. IMHO JSON is probably easiest.
In your example the data file might look like this
[
{
'User':'Test',
'Age':18,
'Gender':'F'
},
{
'User':'Test2',
'Age':34,
'Gender':'M'
}
]
The php to read from it would be
contents = file_get_contents($filename);
$contents = utf8_encode($contents);
$m = json_decode($contents);
Now you can work on $m as you would any array
foreach( $m as $user )
{
print $user->User . "\n";
}
$filename = "users.txt";
$user_file_array = file($filename, FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES);
//Now you have an array of each line of the file.
foreach($user_file_array as $user_info) {
if(strpos($user_info, "User=") !== false) {
$users[] = str_replace("User=", "", $user_info);
}
}
The above assumes that each bit of info is on a new line, that User= is case-sensitive, and that you are okay with looping through whole file. You will get an array returned of just the user names on the right-side of the User=.
If you want that to be echoed out in a column, either change the bit where the $users array gets built, or add this to the end:
echo implode("\n" $users);
Unless you're looking for a specific value, you're basically going to have to read the whole file in to memory. You could read it line-by-line and output any line that started with "User", like this:
$fp = fopen("test_input.txt","r");
while(! feof($fp)) {
$line = fgets($fp);
if (substr($line,0,5) == "User=") echo substr($line,5);
}
fclose($fp);
If you wanted the information in a more useful form, you could break it up into an array of users. Assuming that each "section" of your file is separated by a double newline, you could do this:
$out = array();
$contents = file_get_contents('test_input.txt');
$blocks = explode("\n\n",$contents);
foreach($blocks as $b)
{
$user = array();
$lines = explode("\n",$b);
foreach($lines as $line) {
list($key,$value) = explode("=",$line,2);
$user[$key] = $value;
}
$out[] = $user;
}
//now have an array of user info
foreach($out as $i) echo $i['User'];
Obviously this makes assumptions about your data (such as all lines separated by "\n" characters), but you get the idea.
You could try fgets() to get a line of the file and substring the beginning to test if it starts with the proper text. There may be easier ways.
<?php
$lines = array();
$file = fopen("sample.txt", "r") or exit("Unable to open file!");
//Output a line of the file until the end is reached
$i = 0;
while(!feof($file))
{
$i++;
$lines[$i] = fgets($file). "<br />";
}
fclose($file);
$matches = preg_grep("/^User=(.*)/", $lines);
print_r($matches);
?>
Taken from http://php.net/manual/en/function.preg-grep.php, http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php?topic=213127.0
If you're married to/stuck with the format that you described, then you can try out my code below. It will give you a nice array that you can work with easily. Otherwise, I suggest you take Michael Anderson's advice and switch over to JSON as it will save you time and normalize things a bit.
$rawData = file_get_contents("data.txt");
$users = array();
$tmpUser = array();
foreach ( file("data.txt", FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES) as $line ) {
// Blank line denotes the end of a record
if ( empty($line) ) {
$users[] = $tmpUser;
$tmpUser = array();
continue;
}
list($key, $value) = explode("=", $line, 2);
$tmpUser[ strtolower(trim($key)) ] = trim($value);
}
// Add last record
if ( !empty($tmpUser) ) {
$users[] = $tmpUser;
}
print_r($users);
Result
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[user] => Test
[age] => 18
[gender] => F
)
[1] => Array
(
[user] => Test2
[age] => 34
[gender] => M
)
)
I realize that you asked specifically to be able to get just the user name; however, this is probably more beneficial in the term of whatever you are trying to accomplish.
chk this code
<?php
$file = "test.txt";
$userArr=array();
$f = fopen($file, "r");
while ( $line = fgets($f) )
{
$lineArr = explode('=',$line);
if($lineArr[0]=='User')
{
echo "User Name: ".$lineArr[1];
echo "<br/>";
$userArr[] = $lineArr[1];
}
}
print_r($userArr);
?>
For more info chk this here
I am trying to create a multi-dimensional array whose parts are determined by a string. I'm using . as the delimiter, and each part (except for the last) should be an array
ex:
config.debug.router.strictMode = true
I want the same results as if I were to type:
$arr = array('config' => array('debug' => array('router' => array('strictMode' => true))));
This problem's really got me going in circles, any help is appreciated. Thanks!
Let’s assume we already have the key and value in $key and $val, then you could do this:
$key = 'config.debug.router.strictMode';
$val = true;
$path = explode('.', $key);
Builing the array from left to right:
$arr = array();
$tmp = &$arr;
foreach ($path as $segment) {
$tmp[$segment] = array();
$tmp = &$tmp[$segment];
}
$tmp = $val;
And from right to left:
$arr = array();
$tmp = $val;
while ($segment = array_pop($path)) {
$tmp = array($segment => $tmp);
}
$arr = $tmp;
I say split everything up, start with the value, and work backwards from there, each time through, wrapping what you have inside another array. Like so:
$s = 'config.debug.router.strictMode = true';
list($parts, $value) = explode(' = ', $s);
$parts = explode('.', $parts);
while($parts) {
$value = array(array_pop($parts) => $value);
}
print_r($parts);
Definitely rewrite it so it has error checking.
Gumbo's answer looks good.
However, it looks like you want to parse a typical .ini file.
Consider using library code instead of rolling your own.
For instance, Zend_Config handles this kind of thing nicely.
I really like JasonWolf answer to this.
As to the possible errors: yes, but he supplied a great idea, now it is up to the reader to make it bullet proof.
My need was a bit more basic: from a delimited list, create a MD array. I slightly modified his code to give me just that. This version will give you an array with or without a define string or even a string without the delimiter.
I hope someone can make this even better.
$parts = "config.debug.router.strictMode";
$parts = explode(".", $parts);
$value = null;
while($parts) {
$value = array(array_pop($parts) => $value);
}
print_r($value);
// The attribute to the right of the equals sign
$rightOfEquals = true;
$leftOfEquals = "config.debug.router.strictMode";
// Array of identifiers
$identifiers = explode(".", $leftOfEquals);
// How many 'identifiers' we have
$numIdentifiers = count($identifiers);
// Iterate through each identifier backwards
// We do this backwards because we want the "innermost" array element
// to be defined first.
for ($i = ($numIdentifiers - 1); $i >=0; $i--)
{
// If we are looking at the "last" identifier, then we know what its
// value is. It is the thing directly to the right of the equals sign.
if ($i == ($numIdentifiers - 1))
{
$a = array($identifiers[$i] => $rightOfEquals);
}
// Otherwise, we recursively append our new attribute to the beginning of the array.
else
{
$a = array($identifiers[$i] => $a);
}
}
print_r($a);