capturing particular string and values from a php string

Question

I have a variable in php that has the following value:

var $line="'PHYSICAL':3.8,'ORGANIZATIONAL':4,'TECHNICAL':2.9";

From that line variable, I want to extract each word and values in php, so basically I want something like below:

var $word1=PHYSICAL;
var $word1value=3.8;
var $word2=ORGANIZATIONAL;
var $word2value=4;
var $word3=TECHNICAL;
var $word3value=2.9;

I want to capture all the words and values separately in different variables, so that later I can process them. Can anyone please assist me on this. Thanks.

can't you just use arrays?

Kevin
– Kevin

2018-05-28 04:19:42 +00:00
Commented May 28, 2018 at 4:19 — Kevin
– Kevin, Commented May 28, 2018 at 4:19

Nick · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-28 04:42:17Z

3

The simplest way to do this is with preg_split. You can use the PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE flag to enable capturing the word without the surrounding quotes, and PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY to remove the empty values that arise from this particular split pattern.

$line="'PHYSICAL':3.8,'ORGANIZATIONAL':4,'TECHNICAL':2.9"; 
$array = preg_split("/'([^']+)':|,/", $line, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY | PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
print_r($array);

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => PHYSICAL
    [1] => 3.8
    [2] => ORGANIZATIONAL
    [3] => 4
    [4] => TECHNICAL
    [5] => 2.9
)

You can then post-process the array (for example using array_filter and array_combine) to produce something which might be more useful:

$newarray = array_combine(array_filter($array, function ($i) { return !($i % 2); }, ARRAY_FILTER_USE_KEY),
                          array_filter($array, function ($i) { return $i % 2; }, ARRAY_FILTER_USE_KEY));
print_r($newarray);

Output:

Array
(
    [PHYSICAL] => 3.8
    [ORGANIZATIONAL] => 4
    [TECHNICAL] => 2.9
)

If you really want the individual variables you can do this:

for ($i = 0; $i < count($array); $i += 2) {
    ${'word' . intdiv($i+2, 2)} = $array[$i];
    ${'word' . intdiv($i+2, 2) . 'value'} = $array[$i+1];
}
echo "word1 = $word1\n";
echo "word1value = $word1value\n";
echo "word2 = $word2\n";
echo "word2value = $word2value\n";
echo "word3 = $word3\n";
echo "word3value = $word3value\n";

Output:

word1 = PHYSICAL
word1value = 3.8
word2 = ORGANIZATIONAL
word2value = 4
word3 = TECHNICAL
word3value = 2.9

edited May 28, 2018 at 4:42

answered May 28, 2018 at 4:29

Nick

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2 Comments

Arif Over a year ago

Hi, thank you so much. This works perfectly fine. I appreciate your help.

Nick Over a year ago

That's great, glad to help. I've also (since I was in the process of typing when you accepted the answer) added a way to get the individual variables you described in your question.

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