Casting to Array!

[saidbakr]

Hi,
Suppose the following string variable,
$arg = 'array("r1"=>array("f1"=>1,"f2"=>2,"f3"=>3))';
As you see the string is an array intiation statement.
When I try to cast it to an array using PHP casting as follows,
$arr = (array) $arg;
It returns an array its index number of 0 holds the string as its value, and this is the output
of print_r for it,
Array
(
[0] => array("r1"=>array("f1"=>1,"f2"=>2,"f3"=>3))
)

What I want to do is:
Converting this string as a real array. Supposing removing the quots:
$arr = array("r1"=>array("f1"=>1,"f2"=>2,"f3"=>3));
In other word
I want something($arg) to make print_r(ofThatThing) to print out
Array
(
[r1] => Array
(
[f1] => 1
[f2] => 2
[f3] => 3
)

)

You may ask, Why I want to do that?
I want to do that because I want to generate a dynamic array during the run time, not only
to store variables inside it.

Is this possible?
😕

[bubblenut]

You could do it with eval('$arr='.$arg); but I'm sure there is a better way of achiving what you want. You can pass arrays between pages if you [man]serialize()[/man] them, prehapse that would help, it would certainly be a more efficient way of storing an array as a string.
HTH
Bubble

[Moonglobe]

easiest way:

$array = eval('return '.$array.';');

this will take the php code stored in your string and run it through the parser, thereby getting what you want.