I am using an api to retrieve data from another server the data returned is something like this:
accountid=10110 type=prem servertime=1263752255 validuntil=1266163393
username= curfiles=11 curspace=188374868 bodkb=5000000 premkbleft=24875313
This is a whole string I need two values out of whole string, I am currently using preg_match to get it, but just to learn more and improve my coding is there any other way or function in which all values are automatically convert to array?
Thank You.
Sooo, my faster-than-preg_split, strpos-based function looks like this:
function unpack_server_data($serverData)
{
$output = array();
$keyStart = 0;
$keepParsing = true;
do
{
$keyEnd = strpos($serverData, '=', $keyStart);
$valueStart = $keyEnd + 1;
$valueEnd = strpos($serverData, ' ', $valueStart);
if($valueEnd === false)
{
$valueEnd = strlen($serverData);
$keepParsing = false;
}
$key = substr($serverData, $keyStart, $keyEnd - $keyStart);
$value = substr($serverData, $valueStart, $valueEnd - $valueStart);
$output[$key] = $value;
$keyStart = $valueEnd + 1;
}
while($keepParsing);
return $output;
}
It looks for an equals character, then looks for a space character, and uses these two to decide where a key name begins, and when a value name begins.
Using explode is the fastest for this, no matter what.
However, to answer you question, you can do this many ways. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should. But if you really wanna make it weird, try this.
UPdated using strpos
$arr = array();
$begin = 0;
$str = trim($str); # remove leading and trailing whitespace
while ($end = strpos($str, ' ', $begin)) {
$split = strpos($str, '=', $begin);
if ($split > $end) break;
$arr[substr($str, $begin, $split-$begin)] = substr($str, $split+1, $end-$split-1);
$begin = $end+1;
}
parse_str (not parse-str) expects ampersands as key-value separators.