how to extract key-value pairs from string (not array)

[NamemeNick]

This seems like a simple problem but I'm a newbie struggling

 

What is the most efficient way to extract key-value pairs from a given string?  For instance I'd like to go from:

 

'height=6&weight=170&eyes=brown'

to

$height='6';
$weight='170';
$eyes='brown';

 

Please teach :-)

[Mark Baker]

$string = 'height=6&weight=170&eyes=brown';

$tmpArray = explode('&',$string);
foreach ($tmpArray as $tmpVar) {
   list($name,$value) = explode('=',$tmpVar);
   $$name = $value;
}

[ghostdog74]

$string="height=6&weight=170&eyes=brown";
$s = explode("&",$string);
foreach( $s as $k=>$v){
  $v=explode("=",$v);
  $a[$v[0]]=$v[1];
}
print_r($a);

[NamemeNick]

Thanks guys! 

 

ghostdog74, it seems like your script will return an array rather than distinct variables holding strings.  Is that right?

 

What do you think of this one?  I got it from another source but it looks like gibberish to me (seems to work though)

$querystring = 'height=6&weight=170&eyes=brown';
preg_match_all("/(.*?)=(.*?)(&|$)/", $querystring, $matches);
for ($i = 0; $i < count($matches[0]); $i++) $$matches[1][$i] = $matches[2][$i];

[ghostdog74]

ghostdog74, it seems like your script will return an array rather than distinct variables holding strings.  Is that right?

yes, that's right. if you  don't need arrays, then after exploding on the "&", the array will contain 3 elements. that's all you need.

What do you think of this one?  I got it from another source but it looks like gibberish to me (seems to work though)

$querystring = 'height=6&weight=170&eyes=brown';
preg_match_all("/(.*?)=(.*?)(&|$)/", $querystring, $matches);
for ($i = 0; $i < count($matches[0]); $i++) $$matches[1][$i] = $matches[2][$i];

if you don't understand what its doing in the first place, then don't use it. regular expressions , although powerful, tends to make things look "gibberish". Even worse if you are not well trained in regex. Being more expressive in your codes will make your life easier next time, both in the area of maintenance and code troubleshooting.

[NamemeNick]

Thanks ghostdog,

 

Someone brought parse_str() to my attention.  Checkout http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.parse-str.php

[ghostdog74]

Thanks ghostdog,

 

Someone brought parse_str() to my attention.  Checkout http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.parse-str.php

good. the bottom line is, PHP provides you numerous string functions you can use, regex should be the last thing that comes to your mind.