Question

I have string

$argsInString = '"%s hello", \'%s world\', $foo->bar("anything", array(\'foo\' => 5 , \'bar\' => $a)),5, foo($s) ,$foo';

And I want convert to array like this:

$argsInArray = array('"%s hello"', '\'%s world\'', '$foo->bar("anything", array(\'foo\' => 5 , \'bar\' => $a))', '5', 'foo($s)', '$foo');

I try anything like this:

eval('$argsInArray = array(' . $argsInString . ');');

but this execute variables.

Could you help me how create $argsInArray from $argsInString?

EDIT:
If it succeed to write a regular expression that would clothed individual parameters, using a single quote (‘), in the string, then the eval work as described above.

Or could you write regular expression preg_match_all(‘…’, $argsInString, $argsInArray); this is best.

Answer 1

Here’s a Regex that will work on samples like this:

/(?: ?)([^,]*\(.*?\)|.+?)(?: ?)(?:,|$)/

Explained demo here: http://regex101.com/r/hK6nN0

Update:
to also match single and double quoted strings that contain , like:
"%s, hello", \'%s, world\', 5

/(?: ?)([^,]*\(.*?\)|[^,]*'[^']*'|[^,]*"[^"]*"|.+?)(?: ?)(?:,|$)/

Explained demo here: http://regex101.com/r/tD3cN9