How to convert string to array?

Question

I need to convert string

\"name1\", \"b\", \"2\", \"name2\", \"c\", \"3\", \"name3\", \"b\", \"2\", ....

to an array like

$         


        

Answer 1

$input = '"name1", "b", "2", "name2", "c", "3", "name3", "b", "2"';
$input = str_replace('"', '', $input);
$input = explode(', ', $input);

$output = array();
$i = 0;
while ($i < count($input)) {
    $output[] = array(
        'name' => $input[$i++],
        'char' => $input[$i++],
        'qnt' => $input[$i++]
    );
}

print_r($output);

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [name] => name1
            [char] => b
            [qnt] => 2
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [name] => name2
            [char] => c
            [qnt] => 3
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [name] => name3
            [char] => b
            [qnt] => 2
        )

)

Answer 2

If you do not care about the array keys being numeric, you can do:

$string = 'name1, b, 2, name2, c, 3, name3, b, 2';
print_r( array_chunk( explode(',', $string), 3 ) );