php-array-reader


This small JS utility reads PHP strings containing arrays and returns a JavaScript object.

It uses glayzzle/php-parser to parse PHP into AST and uses that
info to extract arrays.
It supports both indexed and associative arrays (i.e. lists and dictionaries/maps) and array, string, numeric and null values.
Inline function calls are not evaluated but returned as raw strings. See the example below.

Installation

This library is distributed with npm :

``sh
npm install php-array-reader --save
`

Usage

`js
import { fromString } from 'php-array-reader';

const phpString = [
'key' => 'string',
'list' => [
'first',
'second'
],
'dictionary' => [
'foo' => 'bar',
'hello' => 'world'
],
'also_supports' => null,
'and_numeric' => 42,
'what_about' => true,
'or' => false,
'func' => strtoupper('abc'),
];
const data = fromString(phpString);
`
data will be this JS object:
`js
{
key: 'string',
list: ['first', 'second'],
dictionary: {
foo: 'bar',
hello: 'world'
},
also_supports: null,
and_numeric: 42,
what_about: true,
or: false,
func: "strtoupper('abc')"
}
`

$3

Use fs.readFileSync or another file reading library to read the file, and pass
that string into fromString, e.g.:
`js
import { fromString } from 'php-array-reader';
import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs';

const phpFile = './file.php';
const phpString = readFileSync(phpFile);

const data = fromString(phpFile);
`

> [!NOTE]
> Version 1.x of this library included a fromFile method
> that allowed you to read a file directly. This has been removed in version 2.x forward, because that method was a scope creep.

The PHP file can either return a single array, e.g.:
`php
return [
'key' => 'string',
'list' => [
'first',
'second'
],
'dictionary' => [
'foo' => 'bar',
'hello' => 'world'
],
'also_supports' => null,
'and_numeric' => 42
];
`

This will have the same result as the fromString example above.

Or the PHP file may consist of multiple assigned arrays, e.g.:
`php
$first = [
'key' => 'string',
'dictionary' => [
'foo' => 'bar',
'hello' => 'world'
]
];
$second = [
'list' => [
'first','second'
],
'also_supports' => null,
'and_numeric' => 42
];
`

This will return a JS object with the variable names as the first level keys:
`js
{
first: {
key: 'string',
dictionary: {
foo: 'bar',
hello: 'world'
}
},
second: {
list: ['first', 'second'],
also_supports: null,
and_numeric: 42
}
}
``