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phparraysjsonstringtext-parsing

Parse JSON string which is invalid due to missing quotes

I have a string "[[10,20],[30,40],[50,30]]" which can be converted into array by simply using json_decode which works fine for numeric values but it's failing for string values like "[S,M,L]" which I handled using a simple logic.

$string_value = str_replace(',', '","', $string_value);
$string_value = str_replace('[', '["', $string_value);
$string_value = str_replace(']', '"]', $string_value);
$string_value = json_decode($string_value);

This works fine for a one dimensional array like the one given above, but in case of a 2d array like [[red,green],[red],[red,blue]] it's failing.

Solution

  • A regex replacement would work to wrap all alphabetical characters in quotes:

    $value = preg_replace( "(\w+)", '\'$0\'', $input );

    Like so:

    <?php

$input1 = "[[10,20],[30,40],[50,30]]";
$input2 = "[[red,green],[red],[red,blue]]";

$value1 = preg_replace( "(\w+)", '\'$0\'', $input1 );
$value2 = preg_replace( "(\w+)", '\'$0\'', $input2 );

echo $value1;
echo "<br />";
echo $value2;

?>

    Gives me this output:

    [['10','20'],['30','40'],['50','30']]
[['red','green'],['red'],['red','blue']]