PHP Split String contains arrays inside bracket into Multidimensional Arrays

Question

I have a string where there are arrays separated by {|} like this :

$string = "Hi, {Mr.|Mrs.} {Alvin|Dale}! Good Morning!";

One of the many things I've tried :

$string = "Hi, {Mr.|Mrs.} {Alvin|Dale}! Good Morning!";
preg_match_all("/[()=]|\\{[^\}]+\\}|[+-]|[^=]+$/", $string, $matches);

Expected result:

$result = array ( 
0 => array ( 0 => 'Hi, '), 
1 => array ( 0 => 'Mr.', 1 => 'Mrs.'),
2 => array ( 0 => ' '), 
3 => array ( 0 => 'Alvin', 1 => 'Dale'), 
4 => array ( 0 => '! Good Morning!')
);

Actual result:

$result = array ( 
0 => 'Hi, {Mr.|Mrs.} {Alvin|Dale}! Good Morning!'
);

What's your use case here? Are you trying to do translation or is this a part of some custom template? — Sherif
– Sherif, Commented Aug 7, 2021 at 15:15
i want to show all possible of $string like this question link — Pano Lu
– Pano Lu, Commented Aug 8, 2021 at 2:49

The fourth bird · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-08 10:31:29Z

1

You could split the string on matching from an opening curly till a closing curly brace, and keep the values you split on using that pattern in a capture group for the inner part of the curly braces

Then you can use array_map and split on |.

For example

$pattern = "/{([^{}]+)}/";
$string = "Hi, {Mr.|Mrs.} {Alvin|Dale}! Good Morning!";
$result = preg_split($pattern, $string, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY | PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

$result = array_map(function($x) {
    return explode('|', $x);
}, $result);

Output

array (
  0 => 
  array (
    0 => 'Hi, ',
  ),
  1 => 
  array (
    0 => 'Mr.',
    1 => 'Mrs.',
  ),
  2 => 
  array (
    0 => ' ',
  ),
  3 => 
  array (
    0 => 'Alvin',
    1 => 'Dale',
  ),
  4 => 
  array (
    0 => '! Good Morning!',
  ),
)

See a PHP demo

answered Aug 8, 2021 at 10:31

The fourth bird

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Comments

Casimir et Hippolyte · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-10 19:04:16Z

1

PHP >= 7.4:

$string = "Hi, {Mr.|Mrs.} {Alvin|Dale}! Good Morning!";

preg_match_all('~{[^}]*}|[^{]+~', $string, $matches);

$result = array_map(
    fn($m) => $m[0] === '{' ? explode('|', trim($m, '{}')) : $m,
    $matches[0]
);

answered Aug 10, 2021 at 19:04

Casimir et Hippolyte

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Comments

OpenSourceAdvocate · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-07 15:26:15Z

Could you explain how $string gets generated as your array is incorrect

For example those {} gets generated via json: EG:

$string = array(
    0 => 'Hi, ',
    1 => array(
        0 => 'Mr.',
        1 => 'Mrs.'
    )
);

$jsonOut = json_encode($string); // encodes array to json format

print_r('Json String: ' . $jsonOut);
print "\r\n";
print_r('Back To array format:');
print "\r\n";
print_r(json_decode($jsonOut, true)); // json_decode(#jsonString, true) brings back the original php array

In the example above, you will get the following outputs (all tested)

Json String: ["Hi, ",["Mr.","Mrs."]]
Back To array format:
Array
(
    [0] => Hi, 
    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => Mr.
            [1] => Mrs.
        )

)

I have used the data you provided to give you a little bit of an understanding (with example), I cannot do the entire script for you though.

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