How to convert a string that contains an associative array to an associative array type?

Question

I have a string that contains associative array like that

$string = "['key1'=>'value1','key2'=>'value2','key3'=>'value3']";

and I want to convert it to an associative array so i can loop through it.

is there any way to do it ?

Thanks in advance .

Answer 1

Very simple way is convert that string to json and decode

$string = str_replace(["'", '=>', '[', ']'], ['"', ':', '{', '}'], $string);
print_r(json_decode($string, true));

demo

Answer 2

You can use preg_match_all Like so:

$string = "['key1'=>'value1','key2'=>'value2','key3'=>'value3']";

preg_match_all("/'(?P<key>[-\w]+)'\s*=\>\s*'(?P<value>[-\w]+)'/", $string, $matches);

print_r($matches);

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => 'key1'=>'value1'
            [1] => 'key2'=>'value2'
            [2] => 'key3'=>'value3'
        )

    [key] => Array
        (
            [0] => key1
            [1] => key2
            [2] => key3
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => key1
            [1] => key2
            [2] => key3
        )

    [value] => Array
        (
            [0] => value1
            [1] => value2
            [2] => value3
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => value1
            [1] => value2
            [2] => value3
        )

)

See it live here

One note is that [-\\w]+ matchs az , AZ , 0-9 , - and _ , so this should be the format for both the keys and values. You can of course adjust the Regx to your needs.

Now if you want to put them in a more usable format you can add this:

 $output = array_combine($matches['key'],$matches['value']);

Output

Array
(
    [key1] => value1
    [key2] => value2
    [key3] => value3
)

One note I should say, is this will not work for nested arrays, for that you need something a bit more advanced.