How to turn strings into arrays using regex pattern using preg_match_all

Question

How can I separate the challenge string below into an array with a regex pattern?

For example:

$str = '{varA: "value, A", varB: "value:B", varC: "value C", varD: "value\"D\""}';

// remove both curved brackets
$trimStr = substr($str, 1, strlen($str)-1);
preg_match_all("/(.*?):\"(.*?)\",/sm", $trimStr, $m);  // would like the regex to ignore the ',' and double quote in the value string too

Into an array where

arr[0] = 'varA: "value, A"';
arr[1] = 'varB: "value:B"';
arr[2] = 'varC: "value C"';
arr[3] = 'varC: "value \"D\""';

Please share the regex pattern you've tried and explain how it fails (doesn't match anything, matches wrong value...). — El_Vanja
– El_Vanja, Commented Jan 4, 2021 at 12:49
Not sure why the question was closed now that it has full details. — user3783243
– user3783243, Commented Jan 4, 2021 at 14:00
The string $str contains a Javascript object notation. It's not JSON! I haven't found a good solution to convert such a notation into a PHP array. — jspit
– jspit, Commented Jan 4, 2021 at 14:24

user3783243 · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-04 13:12:49Z

1

In your example it seems like you don't need to use regex at all, just remove the curly brackets and explode your string into an array. Since your elements are already comma separated, just use the correct delimiter.

$arr = explode(', ', $str);

However if you insist on using regex, here's an expression that will match your elements:

var\w+\:\s\".+?(?=\,|})

edited Jan 4, 2021 at 13:12

user3783243

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answered Jan 4, 2021 at 12:58

Johnson

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3 Comments

davidlee Over a year ago

how could i able to escape the comma and double quote in the value?

davidlee Over a year ago

The explode works only if there is no comma in the values. However, it would break if there exist , in the values.

davidlee Over a year ago

@user3783243 thanks for the tips. Will update the ques

user3783243 · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-04 13:54:29Z

0

You need to give optional spacing between the : and " and you need to change delimiter to , or end of line.

(.*?):\h*\"(.*?)\"(?:,|$)

https://regex101.com/r/aAyrQA/1/

or:

\{?(.*?):\h*\"(.*?)\"(?:,|\}|$)

and you can remove the $trimStr = substr($str, 1, strlen($str)-1);.

full PHP example:

preg_match_all('/\{?(.*?):\h*\"(.*?)\"(?:,|\}|$)/', '{varA: "value, A", varB: "value:B", varC: "value C", varD: "value\"D\""}', $matches);
foreach($matches[1] as $key => $match) {
    $arr[] = $match . ' :"' . $matches[2][$key] . '"';
}

https://3v4l.org/0nJqW

edited Jan 4, 2021 at 13:54

answered Jan 4, 2021 at 13:48

user3783243

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Comments

InspectorGadget · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-04 13:28:08Z

0

/(.*?):\"(.*?)\",/sm => /{?((.*?): ?"(.*?)")[,}]/ try regex

PHP code:

$str = '{varA: "value A", varB: "value:B", varC: "value C", varD: "value"D""}';
$pattern = '/{?((.*?): ?"(.*?)")[,}]/';
$arr = [];

preg_match_all($pattern, $str, $matches);
foreach($matches[1] as $match){
  $arr[] = $match;
}
print_r($arr);

edited Jan 4, 2021 at 13:28

answered Jan 4, 2021 at 13:14

InspectorGadget

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