Feeding strings into a complex array

[Theophilus]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone can help? I'd like to know if I can write some code that can process a string like

"PRODUCT😛RODUCTDATA:NAME:Chess for beginners"

into an array with the structure

$item['PRODUCT']['PRODUCTDATA']['NAME'] = "Chess for beginners"

I should like my program to be able to build up an array $item[] from several such strings. However, the strings dictate the structure of the array. Each string may have a different number of intended 'elements' (eg [PRODUCT][PRODUCTDATA]) preceding the intended content (eg. 'Chess for beginners'). Examples:

"PRODUCT:CODE:57"
"PRODUCT😛RODUCTDATA:NAME:Chess for beginners"
"PRODUCT😛RODUCTDATA😛RICE:£4.99"
"PRODUCT😛RODUCTICON:http://www.mysite.com/chess.gif"

Can anyone think of a simple piece of code that I could feed the strings into which would build up the array $item[]?

Thanks!

[Weedpacket]

I don't know; can you? 🙂

Looks pretty simple in format... Hmm....
Okay, here's a first cut. Not properly tested (and I can see some problems with it already about how it handles, e.g., quotes or colons in entry values):

//Example
$string="PRODUCT:PRODUCTDATA:NAME:Chess for beginners";

//Work
$array = explode(':',$string);
$value=array_pop($array);
$string="['".join("']['", $array)."']";
eval('$item'.$string.'="'.$value.'";');

//Check
print_r($item);

[Theophilus]

Apart from the weakness you mention, this seems to work ok. Thanks for the idea. 🙂