php regex to find javascript variables

Question

The text I am searching contains vars (= OR :) { (the stuff I want }

Between the = and the { can be only whitespace and may contain a new line.

I will be turning this into a key/value array in PHP.

Here is what I am attempting which does not result in any matches:

$str = "vars = {'first' : 'joe', 'last' : 'smith' };";

preg_match("/^vars\s=\s\{(.*)\}/",$str, $matches);

echo $matches[0];

another string that should match:

$str = "vars : {'first' : 'joe', 'last' : 'smith' };";

lneb · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-13 17:18:05Z

1

Maybe you could grab everything inside the { } and then let a JSON parser do the rest for you.

$str = 'vars = {"first" : "joe", "last" : "smith" };';
preg_match("/\{.*\}/",$str, $matches);
var_dump(json_decode($matches[0]));

object(stdClass)#1 (2) {
  ["first"]=>
  string(3) "joe"
  ["last"]=>
  string(5) "smith"
}

This approach only works with valid JSON ofc.

edited Jan 13, 2015 at 17:18

answered Jan 12, 2015 at 22:21

lneb

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2 Comments

pguardiario Over a year ago

You need to escape the {} and the () is unnecessary.

lneb Over a year ago

i changed the answer. ty.

Andie2302 · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-12 22:09:39Z

0

To match it use:

preg_match_all('/^vars\s[=:]\s{(.*)};$/m', $str, $matches, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);
$matches = $matches[0];

answered Jan 12, 2015 at 22:09

Andie2302

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