Create Array out of a plain text variable? - php

Question

I am trying to create an array from a plain text variable like so in php:
$arraycontent = "'foo', 'bar', 'hallo', 'world'";
print_r( array($arraycontent) );
But it outputs the entire string as [0]
Array ( [0] => 'foo', 'bar', 'hallo', 'world' )
I would like 'foo' to be [0]
bar to be [1] and so on. Any pointers? Is this even possible?

Answer 1

YIKES, why are these all so long?
Here's a one liner:
explode("', '", trim($arraycontent, "'"));

Answer 2

If your string was like this:
$arraycontent = "foo, bar, hallo, world"
With only the commas separating, then you could use explode, like this:
$myArray = explode(", ", $arraycontent);
This will create an array of strings based on the separator you define, in this case ", ".
If you want to keep the string as is, you can use this:
$myArray = explode("', '", trim($arraycontent, "'"));
This will now use "', '" as the separator, and the trim() function removes the ' from the beginning and end of the string.

Answer 3

If this is PHP you could use:
$foo = "'foo', 'bar', 'hallo', 'world'";
function arrayFromString($string){
$sA = str_split($string); array_shift($sA); array_pop($sA);
return explode("', '", implode('', $sA));
}
print_r(arrayFromString($foo));

Answer 4

eval('$array = array('.$arraycontent.');');
Would be the shortest way.
$array = explode(',', $arraycontent);
$mytrim = function($string) { return trim($string, " '"); };
$array = array_map($mytrim, $array);
A safer and therefore better one. If you have different whitespace characters you would have to edit the $mytrim lambda-function.

Answer 5

Here is a variant that based on the input example would work, but there might be corner cases that is not handled as wanted.
$arraycontent = "'foo', 'bar', 'hallo', 'world'";
$arrayparts = explode(',', $arraycontent); // split to "'foo'", " 'bar'", " 'hallo'", " 'world'"
for each ($arrayparts as $k => $v) $arrayparts[$k] = trim($v, " '"); // remove single qoute and spaces in beggning and end.
print_r( $arrayparts ); // Array ( [0] => 'foo', [1] => 'bar', [2] => 'hallo', [3] => 'world' )
This should give what you want, but also note that for example
$arraycontent = " ' foo ' , ' bar ' ' ' ' ', 'hallo', 'world'";
Would give the same output, so the question then becomes how strict are the $arraycontentinput?

Answer 6

If you have to have input like this, I suggest trimming it and using preg_split().
$arraycontent = "'foo', 'bar', 'hallo', 'world'";
$trimmed = trim($arraycontent, " \t\n\r\0\x0B'\""); // Trim whitespaces and " and '
$result = preg_split("#['\"]\s*,\s*['\"]#", $trimmed); // Split that string with regex!
print_r($result); // Yeah, baby!
EDIT: Also I might add that my solution is significantly faster (and more universal) than the others'.
That universality resides in:
It can recognize both " and ' as correct quotes and
It ignores the extra spaces before, in and after quoted text; not inside of it.

Answer 7

Seems you are having problem while creating an array..
try using
<?php
$arraycontent = array('foo', 'bar', 'hallo', 'world');
print_r( array($arraycontent) );
?>
its output will be:
Array ( [0] => Array ( [0] => foo [1] => bar [2] => hallo [3] => world
) )