How to convert String Array to php Array?

Question

How to convert Sting Array to PHP Array?

"['a'=>'value one','key2'=>'value two']"

to

$data=['a'=>'value one','key2'=>'value two'];

Please let me know if anyone knows of any solution

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I want to take array input via textarea. And I want to convert that to a PHP array.

When I'm through textarea

['a'=>'value one','key2'=>'value two']

This is happening after submitting the from

"['a'=>'value one','key2'=>'value two']"

Now how do I convert from this to PHP Array?

Answer 1

Assuming you are not allowing multi dimensional arrays, this will work:

$stringArray = "['a'=>'value one','key2'=>'value two']";
$array = array();

$trimmedStringArray = trim( $stringArray, '[]' );
$splitStringArray = explode( ',', $trimmedStringArray );
foreach( $splitStringArray as $nameValuePair ){
    list( $key, $value ) = explode( '=>', $nameValuePair );
    $array[$key] = $value;
}

Output:

Array
(
    ['a'] => 'value one'
    ['key2'] => 'value two'
)

You will probably want to do some error checking to make sure the input is in the correct format before you process the input.