Generate arrays from INI string - php

Question

$variable = '
persons.0.name = "peter"
persons.0.lastname = "griffin"
persons.1.name = "homer"
persons.1.lastname = "simpsons"';
I want to generate from that $variable an array that looks like this
array(2) {
[0]=>
array(2) {
["name"]=>
string(5) "peter"
["lastname"]=>
string(7) "griffin"
}
[1]=>
array(2) {
["name"]=>
string(5) "homer"
["lastname"]=>
string(7) "simpson"
}
}
so far this is what I have so far.
$temp = explode('\r\n', $persons);
$sets = [];
foreach ($temp as $value)
{
$array = explode('=', $value);
if ($array[0] != '')
{
$array[1] = trim($array[1], '"');
$sets[$array[0]] = $array[1];
$output = $sets;
}
}
that generates "persons.1.name" as a key and "peter" as a value
I´m not sure how to generate arrays based on "." thank you.
I tried with parse_ini_string() but basically is doing the same thing.

Answer 1

You can use array_reduce and explode
$variable = '
persons.0.name = "peter"
persons.0.lastname = "griffin"
persons.1.name = "homer"
persons.1.lastname = "simpsons"';
$temp = explode(PHP_EOL, $variable);
$result = array_reduce($temp, function($c, $v){
$v = explode( "=", $v );
if ( trim( $v[0] ) !== "" ) {
$k = explode( ".", $v[0] );
$c[ $k[ 1 ] ][ $k[ 2 ] ] = $v[1];
}
return $c;
}, array());
echo "<pre>";
print_r( $result );
echo "</pre>";
This will result to:
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[name ] => "peter"
[lastname ] => "griffin"
)
[1] => Array
(
[name ] => "homer"
[lastname ] => "simpsons"
)
)
Doc: http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-reduce.php
UPDATE: If you want to set depth, you can
$variable = '
persons.0.name = "peter"
persons.0.lastname = "griffin"
persons.1.name = "homer"
persons.1.lastname = "simpsons"
data = "foo"
url = so.com?var=true
';
$temp = explode(PHP_EOL, $variable);
$result = array_reduce($temp, function($c, $v){
$v = explode( "=", $v, 2 );
if ( trim( $v[0] ) !== "" ) {
$k = explode( ".", $v[0] );
$data = $v[1];
foreach (array_reverse($k) as $key) {
$data = array( trim( $key ) => $data);
}
$c = array_replace_recursive( $c, $data );
}
return $c;
}, array());
echo "<pre>";
print_r( $result );
echo "</pre>";
This will result to:
Array
(
[persons] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[name] => "peter"
[lastname] => "griffin"
)
[1] => Array
(
[name] => "homer"
[lastname] => "simpsons"
)
)
[data] => "foo"
[url] => so.com?var=true
)

Answer 2

PHP's ini parsing is limited and wouldn't parse that even if it was persons[0][name] = "peter".
Taken from my answer here How to write getter/setter to access multi-level array by key names?, first just explode on = to get the key path and value, and then explode on . for the keys and build the array:
$lines = explode("\n", $variable); //get lines
list($path, $value) = explode('=', $lines); //get . delimited path to build keys and value
$path = explode('.', $path); //explode path to get individual key names
$array = array();
$temp = &$array;
foreach($path as $key) {
$temp =& $temp[trim($key)];
}
$temp = trim($value, '"');
Also trims spaces and ".

Answer 3

Because each line contains the full address to and data for the array, we can create everything with a loop instead of recursion.
// Create variable for final result
$output=[];
// Loop over input lines, and let PHP figure out the key/val
foreach (parse_ini_string($variable) AS $key=>$val) {
$stack = explode('.', $key);
$pos = &$output;
// Loop through elements of key, create when necessary
foreach ($stack AS $elem) {
if (!isset($pos[$elem]))
$pos[$elem] = [];
$pos = &$pos[$elem];
}
// Whole key stack created, drop in value
$pos = $val;
}
// The final output
var_dump($output);
Output:
array(1) {
["persons"]=>
array(2) {
[0]=>
array(2) {
["name"]=>
string(5) "peter"
["lastname"]=>
string(7) "griffin"
}
[1]=>
array(2) {
["name"]=>
string(5) "homer"
["lastname"]=>
&string(8) "simpsons"
}
}
}