Python regular expression for PHP array parsing

Question

I have a function which parses PHP array declarations from files. The function then returns a dictionary with the keys being the keys of the PHP array and the values in python are the values from the PHP array.

Example file:

$lang['identifier_a'] = 'Welcome message';
$lang['identifier_b'] = 'Welcome message.
You can do things a,b, and c here.

Please be patient.';
$lang['identifier_c'] = 'Welcome message2.
You can do things a,b, and c here.
Please be patient.';
$lang['identifier_d'] = 'Long General Terms and Conditions with more text';
$lang['identifier_e'] = 'General Terms and Conditions';
$lang['identifier_f'] = 'Text e';

Python function

def fetch_lang_keys(filename):
    from re import search;
    import mmap;

    ''' fetches all the language keys for filename '''
    with open(filename) as fi:
        lines = fi.readlines();

    data = {};
    for line in lines:
        obj = search("\$lang\[[\'|\"](.{1,})[\'|\"]\] = [\'|\"](.{1,})[\'|\"];", line);
#        re.match(r'''\$lang\[[\'|\"](.{1,})[\'|\"]\] = [\'|\"](.{1,})[\'|\"];''', re.MULTILINE | re.VERBOSE);

        if obj:
            data[obj.group(1)] = obj.group(2);

    return data;

This function should return a dictionary which should look like this:

data['identifier_a'] = 'Welcome message'
data['identifier_b'] = 'Welcome message.
You can do things a,b, and c here.

Please be patient.';
// and so on

The regexp which is used in the function works for everything except for identifier_b and identifier_c, because the regular expression does not match blank lines and/or lines which do not end with ;. The wildcard operator with ; at the end did work either, because it matched too much.

Do you have any idea of how to solve this? I looked into lookahead assertions, but failed to use them properly. Thanks.

[\'|\"] => regular-expressions.info/charclass.html

Casimir et Hippolyte
– Casimir et Hippolyte

2014-02-22 11:46:59 +00:00
Commented Feb 22, 2014 at 11:46 — Casimir et Hippolyte
– Casimir et Hippolyte, Commented Feb 22, 2014 at 11:46

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:20:57Z

2

Well, why my answer is not a solution for your regexp problem, but nevertheless: why don't you wish to use a "real PHP parser" instead of home-brew regexp's? It could be much more reliable and might even be faster, and certainly a more maintainable solution.

Quick googling gave me: https://github.com/ramen/phply . But also I've found this: Parse PHP file variables from Python script . Hope this help.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:20

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answered Feb 22, 2014 at 11:57

user3159253

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2 Comments

Philipp Over a year ago

phply unfortunately does not work as it does not parse the multi line php strings correctly.

user3159253 Over a year ago

well, its unit-tests have testcases for multiline strings, but probably they don't cover your case. I'll check.

Kamehameha · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-22 11:51:30Z

1

This regex seems to work. -

\$lang\[[\'|\"](.{1,})[\'|\"]\] = [\'|\"]((?:.|\n)+?)[\'|\"];
                                          ^^^^^^^^^^

Demo here-

answered Feb 22, 2014 at 11:51

Kamehameha

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2 Comments

Philipp Over a year ago

How would i allow this character '|' in the values too? (Without quotation marks)

Philipp Over a year ago

Another special case occured which i am not to sure about: The value of the PHP array contained '...to Member\'s value...', which was not matched. Any idea?

Casimir et Hippolyte · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-22 11:55:27Z

1

It doesn't work because the dot doesn't match newlines. You must use the singleline modifier (re.DOTALL) instead of the multiline modifier. Example:

obj = re.search(r'\$lang\[[\'"](.+?)[\'"]\] = [\'"](.+?)[\'"];', line, re.DOTALL);

edited Feb 22, 2014 at 11:55

answered Feb 22, 2014 at 11:49

Casimir et Hippolyte

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