parsing strings in string.ini using PHP

Question

I have a strings.ini file where I am defining all the strings like

tz1 = "UTC+4:30 Asia/Kabul"
tz2 = "UTC+5:45 Asia/Katmandu"
tz3 = "UTC-4:30 America/Caracas"

I have a substring value 5:45. Based on that I want to get LHS part tz2. How to do this using PHP?

@SunShine You already have a function called parse_ini_file() in PHP, which helps you do this. — Praveen Kumar Purushothaman
– Praveen Kumar Purushothaman, Commented Feb 8, 2016 at 9:47

Praveen Kumar Purushothaman · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-08 09:50:50Z

2

Let's say, you have settings.ini file. You can use parse_ini_file() function to do this:

settings.ini

[base]
    tz1 = "UTC+4:30 Asia/Kabul"
    tz2 = "UTC+5:45 Asia/Katmandu"
    tz3 = "UTC-4:30 America/Caracas"

PHP File

// Parse without sections
$ini_array = parse_ini_file("settings.ini");
print_r($ini_array);

This would output:

Array
(
    [tz1] => "UTC+4:30 Asia/Kabul"
    [tz2] => "UTC+5:45 Asia/Katmandu"
    [tz3] => "UTC-4:30 America/Caracas"
)

Now you can get the value of tz2 and get the value as:

$ini = explode(" ", $ini_array["tz2"]);
$ini = str_replace("UTC", "", $ini);

So, your $ini value will be: +5:45.

You can also loop through it to get both the LHS and RHS. :)

answered Feb 8, 2016 at 9:50

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8 Comments

Is there any limit for that ? I have some 5300 lines of strings in the ini file and I am not getting all the strings in the array.

@SunShine I believe so. What's the length of your ini file?

@SunShine Length or Depth?

more than 25000 words, 5000 lines

@SunShine Can I give you a better approach for this? Can you try JSON or YAML? Coz I believe this would be too much for an ini file.

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