Reading INI file from PHP which contains Semicolons - php

Question

I have to read config files in PHP which contain entries with semicolons, e.g.
[section]
key=value;othervalue
I notices that parse_ini_file() removes all semicolons and what follows, even when set to INI_SCANNER_RAW.
The INI files come from legacy systems and I can't change the format. I only have to read them.
What's the best tool to use when I have to preserve the entries with semicolons?

Answer 1

I would recommend reading the file into an array first, convert the semicolons to pipes |, then spit that out to a temporary file and use parse_ini_file() with that new temporary file.
Like so...
$string = file_get_contents('your_file');
$newstring = str_replace(";","|",$string);
$tempfile = 'your_temp_filename';
file_put_contents($tempfile, $newstring);
$arrIni = parse_ini_file($tempfile);
Then after that you could always replace the pipes with semicolons as you enumerate your new INI based array.

Answer 2

For ini files, the ; is the comment symbol.
So it's actually a good idea to not use it for something else.
However, you can use this slightly modified functions from the solutions found here :
<?php
//Credits to goulven.ch AT gmail DOT com
function parse_ini ( $filepath )
{
$ini = file( $filepath );
if ( count( $ini ) == 0 ) { return array(); }
$sections = array();
$values = array();
$globals = array();
$i = 0;
foreach( $ini as $line ){
$line = trim( $line );
// Comments
if ( $line == '' || $line{0} == ';' ) { continue; }
// Sections
if ( $line{0} == '[' )
{
$sections[] = substr( $line, 1, -1 );
$i++;
continue;
}
// Key-value pair
list( $key, $value ) = explode( '=', $line, 2 );
$key = trim( $key );
$value = trim( $value );
if (strpos($value, ";") !== false)
$value = explode(";", $value);
if ( $i == 0 ) {
// Array values
if ( substr( $line, -1, 2 ) == '[]' ) {
$globals[ $key ][] = $value;
} else {
$globals[ $key ] = $value;
}
} else {
// Array values
if ( substr( $line, -1, 2 ) == '[]' ) {
$values[ $i - 1 ][ $key ][] = $value;
} else {
$values[ $i - 1 ][ $key ] = $value;
}
}
}
for( $j=0; $j<$i; $j++ ) {
$result[ $sections[ $j ] ] = $values[ $j ];
}
return $result + $globals;
}
You can see examples of usage following the link.