Write php array code to file without evaluating expressions - php

Question

I'm trying to write some code that will generate a php file with an array, like this.
However, in order to create a correct configuration file I need to be able to leave expressions 'as is' within the array. This is because the file will be used by many users and the expressions evaluate based on environmental variables, etc. the user has set up.
So, say we have this key/value in the array I eventually want to output to the file:
[
...
'connection' => $isFork ? $sourceArray['connection'] : config('database.default'),
...
]
When this array is eventually written out to a php file (right now using var_export and file_put_contents) I will see
'connection' => config('database.default')
become
'connection' => 'default_connection',
because the expression is evaluated. What I need is a way to prevent expressions as values in the array from being evaluated but also ensuring
'connection' => $isFork ? $sourceArray['connection']
does evaluate to
'connection' => 'my_connection'
Is there any way to do this?
EDIT: I basically want to do this but in reverse and with expressions.

Answer 1

If I understand you correctly, your solution is to have a string representation of your array so the statements are not evaluated. I would serialize that array and put that string into the file. Tell your peeps to unserialize it right after they receive it. Better yet, json_encode your array which is going to give you a json string. You can put that in via put_file_contents and tell your peeps to json_decode the contents. They can use it as such json_decode($content, TRUE) which will give them back the associative array.
Update
So you want to write straight up PHP. I see that you have connection stuff in your array so I am thinking it is safe to think it is some sort of a configuration file that includes connection settings etc.
// filename should have the .ini at the end
function writeConfig( $filename, $yourArray ) {
$fh = fopen($filename, "w");
// making sure its available
if (!is_resource($fh)) {
return false;
}
// start dumping you array to the file
foreach ($yourArray as $key => $value) {
fwrite($fh, sprintf("%s = %s\n", $key, $value));
}
fclose($fh); // close file
return true;
}
when you want to read it
function readConfigFile( $fileThatMadeAbove ) {
return parse_ini_file($fileThatYouMadeAbove, false, INI_SCANNER_NORMAL);
}
Since it is config info, it may be better to use the ini in php.
If you want to try plain simple solution
$fp=fopen('filename.php','w');
fwrite($fp, "$yourArray");
fclose($fp);
I honestly do not know if you can do "$yourArray" or not and I do not have a place to test it. You most likely need to do a print_r($yourArray) because it is a string that you write to a file which is why I made my recommendation above.
I am out of ideas. Good luck (:

Answer 2

This isn't possible using var_export. The best way I can see to do this is to create a string of the output and use file_put_contents to output this to a file.
This could be achieved by replicating the array structure, e.g.
$arr_str = "[\n";
. "\t'simple_annotations' => false,\n"
. "];";
Or by creating a helper function to use instead of var_export. Something like this:
function var_str($var, $level = 0){
if(is_array($var)) return arr_str($var, $level+1);
elseif(is_string($var)) return '\''.$var.'\'';
elseif(is_numeric($var)) return $var;
elseif(is_null($var)) return 'null';
elseif(is_bool($var)) return ($var ? 'true' : 'false');
}
function arr_str($arr, $level){
$str = "[\n";
foreach($arr as $k => $e){
$str .= str_repeat("\t", $level);
$str .= "'".$k."' => ".var_str($e, $level).",\n";
}
return $str.str_repeat("\t", $level-1).']';
}
print var_str($my_array);

Answer 3

After searching for a few hours I came to the conclusion the only way to take full control over what I wanted to do was to use a templating engine.
The project this is for uses Laravel so I used Blade but any engine would work (I initially tried this with Twig).
I wrote out each section of my config as if it was a regular php array and then used Blade bracketing to encompass the logic needed to find the right value for each key. If the value was not an expression I evaluated the code, and if it was I wrote the expression into a string.
I ended up with this:
//example.blade.php
[
'meta' => '{{{ $isFork ? $data['metadata']['driver'] : 'annotations' }}}',
'connection' => {{{ $isFork ? '\''.$data['connection'].'\'' : 'config("database.default")' }}},
'paths' => {{ var_export(ArrayUtil::get($data['metadata']['paths'], $data['metadata']), true) }},
'repository' => '{{{ ArrayUtil::get($data['repository'], EntityRepository::class) }}}',
'proxies' => [
'namespace' => {{{ isset($data['proxy']['namespace']) ? '\'' . $data['proxy']['namespace'] .'\'' : 'false' }}},
'path' => '{{{ ArrayUtil::get($data['proxy']['directory'], storage_path('proxies')) }}}',
'auto_generate' => {{{ ArrayUtil::get($data['proxy']['auto_generate'], env('DOCTRINE_PROXY_AUTOGENERATE', 'false')) }}}
],
'events' => [
'listeners' => [],
'subscribers' => []
],
'filters' => []
]
and the output:
[
'meta' => 'yaml',
'connection' => config('database.default'),
'paths' => array(
0 => '/proj/app/Models/mappings',
),
'repository' => 'Doctrine\ORM\EntityRepository',
'proxies' => [
'namespace' => false,
'path' => '/proj/storage/proxies',
'auto_generate' => false
],
'events' => [
'listeners' => [],
'subscribers' => []
],
'filters' => []
]
You can see that where I potentially needed to expand an array I used var_export. Other than it was pretty straight forward.