How to turn content from a file into an array in PHP

Question

I have a file that has a array with the translations of a website.

The contents of the file are similar to this:

var textHome = {
    "home": {
        "btn_contact": {
            "pt": "contato",
            "en": "contact",
        },
        "btn_home": {
            "pt": "Início",
            "en": "Home",
        },
        "bt_about": {
            "pt": "Sobre nós",
            "en": "About us",
        },
    }
};

I would like to read this file in php and turn it into an array, put it into a variable and pick up a specific language to add to the content of the site. Ta be necessary to use REGEX to remove "var textHome" and clean up something more unnecessary. You can help me?

Answer 1

First you need to get the contents of the file:

Suppose the file is called meu_js.js and is at the root of the application:

$file = file_get_contents('meu_js.js');

Remember to use your file in the method.

Done this you need to separate the declaration from the JSON variable:

$arr = explode('=',$file);

This will return you a vector with two positions:

array (size=2)
  0 => string 'var textHome ' (length=13)
  1 => string ' {
    "home": {
        "btn_contact": {
            "pt": "contato",
            "en": "contact",
        },
        "btn_home": {
            "pt": "Início",
            "en": "Home",
        },
        "bt_about": {
            "pt": "Sobre nós",
            "en": "About us",
        },
    }
};' (length=317)

The first position does not interest us, but the second one does. It is our JSON. We now need to turn it into a vector.

An important point to note is that this JSON of yours is invalid and will not be decoded by PHP. See why:

{
    "home": {
        "btn_contact": {
            "pt": "contato",
            "en": "contact",\\ <-- essa virgula torna o json inválido. O ultimo atributo do json não deve ter virgula
        },
        "btn_home": {
            "pt": "Início",
            "en": "Home",\\ <-- essa virgula torna o json inválido. O ultimo atributo do json não deve ter virgula
        },
        "bt_about": {
            "pt": "Sobre nós",
            "en": "About us",\\ <-- essa virgula torna o json inválido. O ultimo atributo do json não deve ter virgula
        },\\ <-- essa virgula torna o json inválido. O ultimo atributo do json não deve ter virgula
    }
};\\ <-- como extraímos o json separando a string pelo "=" esse ";" também torna o JSON inválido.

We need to clean JSON to get it read correctly. We have two options here, always ensure the correct writing of JSON or use regex. I will pass here the REGEX used to specifically clean the format you used. Depending on the JSON structure this REGEX may not work properly:

$json_str = str_replace(';','',$arr[1]);

Here we remove the ; from the end of the archive

$json_str = preg_replace('/(\},\s*\}\s*\})/','}}}',$json_str);

Here, we seek the occurrence of }, } }:

• \} - the closing of the key;
• , - followed by a comma;
• \s* - followed by zero or more spaces;
• \} - followed by another key lock;
• \s* - followed by zero or more spaces;
• \} - followed by another key lock;

And replaced by }}} thus removing the comma in

        },
    }
}

Finally, we will replace the commas within the attributes with a similar expression:

$json_str = preg_replace('/(\",\s*\})/','"}',$json_str);

Here, we’re looking for ", } and replacing by "}

• \" - Literal double quotes;
• \s - zero or more spaces;
• \} - literal lock of keys;

Now, just decode the JSON and use it:

$json = json_decode($json_str);
var_dump($json);

object(stdClass)[5]
  public 'home' => 
    object(stdClass)[2]
      public 'btn_contact' => 
        object(stdClass)[1]
          public 'pt' => string 'contato' (length=7)
          public 'en' => string 'contact' (length=7)
      public 'btn_home' => 
        object(stdClass)[3]
          public 'pt' => string 'Início' (length=7)
          public 'en' => string 'Home' (length=4)
      public 'bt_about' => 
        object(stdClass)[4]
          public 'pt' => string 'Sobre nós' (length=10)
          public 'en' => string 'About us' (length=8)

Remembering that this will turn JSON into object. If you want array decode with:

$json = json_decode($json_str,true);

Some recommended readings:

• https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.file-get-contents.php
• https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.str-replace.php
• https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.json-decode.php
• https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php
• https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.explode.php
• https://www.rexegg.com/regex-quickstart.html