Parse a list of attribute/values in PHP

parsing, php, regex

Solution

Try something like this:

$text = "attr1=\"some text\" attr2 = \"some other text\" attr3= \"some weird !@'#$\\\"=+ text\"";
echo $text;
preg_match_all('/(\S+)\s*=\s*"((?:\\\\.|[^\\"])*)"/', $text, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);
print_r($matches);

which produces:

attr1="some text" attr2 = "some other text" attr3= "some weird !@'#$\"=+ text"

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => attr1="some text"
            [1] => attr1
            [2] => some text
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => attr2 = "some other text"
            [1] => attr2
            [2] => some other text
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => attr3= "some weird !@'#$\"=+ text"
            [1] => attr3
            [2] => some weird !@'#$\"=+ text
        )

)

And a short explanation:

(\S+)               // match one or more characters other than white space characters
                    // > and store it in group 1
\s*=\s*             // match a '=' surrounded by zero or more white space characters 
"                   // match a double quote
(                   // open group 2
  (?:\\\\.|[^\\"])* //   match zero or more sub strings that are either a backslash
                    //   > followed by any character, or any character other than a
                    //   > backslash
)                   // close group 2
"                   // match a double quote

Problem

Given a string with attribute/value pairs such as ``` attr1="some text" attr2 = "some other text" attr3= "some weird !@'#$\"=+ text" ``` the goal is to parse it and output an associative array, in this case: ``` array('attr1' => 'some text', 'attr2' => 'some other text', 'attr3' => 'some weird !@\'#$\"=+ text') ``` Note the inconsistent spacing around the equal signs, the escaped double quote in the input, and the escaped single quote in the output.

Original source