reliably convert string containing PHP array info to array [duplicate]

Answer 1

You can write a simple parser:

function explode_str_arr($str) {
    $str.=',';
    $escape_char = '';
    $str_len = strlen($str);
    $cur_value = '';
    $return_arr = array();
    $cur_bracket_level = 0;
    for ($i = 0; $i < $str_len; $i++) {
        if ($escape_char) {
            if ($str[$i] === $escape_char) {
                $escape_char = '';
            }
            $cur_value.=$str[$i];
            continue;
        }

        switch ($str[$i]) {
            case '\'':
            case '"':
                $escape_char = $str[$i];
                break;
            case '(':
                $cur_bracket_level++;
                break;
            case ')':
                $cur_bracket_level--;
                break;
            case ',':
                if (!$cur_bracket_level) {
                    $return_arr[] = $cur_value;
                    $cur_value = '';
                    continue 2;
                }
        }
        $cur_value.=$str[$i];
    }
    return $return_arr;
}

It is ugly unicode-breaking fast code, but I think you may get the idea.