Explode a string into a multidimensional array based on 4 different delimiters which signal how levels are separated

Question

I want to explode a string with different kind of characters.

I already know how to explode a string, I also think I know how I can do it in different levels.

How do you use one of the values as name ($var['name']) instead of having numbers ($var[0])?

I only know how to do this manually in the array, but I don't know how to add it with variables.

In summary I want this string:

title:hello;desc:message|title:lorem;desc:ipsum;ids:1,2,3

to become this array:

[
    [
        'title' => 'hello',
        'desc' => 'message',
    ],
    [
        'title' => 'lorem',
        'desc' => 'ipsum',
        'ids' => ['1', '2', '3'],
    ],
]

Edit: I made some progress, but it's not quite finished.

<?php
$string = "title:hello;desc:message|title:lorem;desc:ipsum;ids:1,2,3";
$string = explode("|", $string);
foreach($string as $split){
    $split = explode(";", $split);
    foreach($split as $split2){
        $split2 = explode(":", $split2);
        // more code..
    }
}

Now I need $split2[0] to be the name and $split2[1] to be the value, like the example earlier.

Answer 1

$input = "title:hello;desc:message|title:lorem;desc:ipsum;ids:1,2,3";
$items = preg_split("/\|/", $input);
$results = array();
$i = 0;
foreach($items as $item){
     $subItems = preg_split("/;/", $item);
     foreach($subItems as $subItem){
        $tmp = preg_split("/:/", $subItem);
        $results[$i][$tmp[0]] = $tmp[1];
     } 
     $i++;

}

It returns:

array(2) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    ["title"]=>
    string(5) "hello"
    ["desc"]=>
    string(7) "message"
  }
  [1]=>
  array(3) {
    ["title"]=>
    string(5) "lorem"
    ["desc"]=>
    string(5) "ipsum"
    ["ids"]=>
    string(5) "1,2,3"
  }
}

And then process your 'ids' index