Extract values from text string using PHP?

Question

Using the Recurly API, the following text is returned. What I'm trying to figure out is the easiest way with PHP to extract values from this string and place them into PHP variables.

I've looked at various methods within the PHP manual to find text but being new to PHP the exact process to actually get the values after I've found their location still not apparent to me.

For example, how would I pull the value for plan_code and remove the quotes around the value so that the result is $plan = 'starter'?

Recurly_Subscription[href=https://api.recurly.com/v2/subscriptions/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] account=<Recurly_Stub[account] href=https://api.recurly.com/v2/accounts/1>, activated_at="2012-07-14 12:55:47 +00:00", currency="USD", current_period_ends_at="2012-08-14 12:55:47 +00:00", current_period_started_at="2012-07-14 12:55:47 +00:00", plan="Recurly_Plan[href=https://api.recurly.com/v2/plans/starter] name="Starter", plan_code="starter", setup_fee_in_cents="<Recurly_CurrencyList []>", unit_amount_in_cents="<Recurly_CurrencyList []>">", quantity=2, state="active", subscription_add_ons=[], unit_amount_in_cents=1200, uuid="1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx3"

Are you sure that's the *exact* text that's returned? [The docs](http://docs.recurly.com/api/subscriptions) say it returns XML. — gen_Eric, Jul 17 '12 at 15:25

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 14 '12 at 18:53

You can use Recurly's PHP API:

$result = Recurly_js::fetch($_POST['recurly_token']);
$plan = $result->plan_code;

The token is a subscription object. You can then retrieve additional information about the account and its billing information like this:

$account = $result->account->get();
$billing = $account->billing_info->get();

Retrieve fields from the account (e.g. account holder first name) and its billing info (e.g. last 4 digits of credit card number of record) the same way plan_code is fetched above.

Doing the above is much easier than finding how to do so in Recurly's documentation!

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 17 '12 at 15:37

A trick is turn it into a querystring syntax and use parse_str(original, array).

$original = 'Recurly_Subscription[href=https://api.recurly.com/v2/subscriptions/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] account=, activated_at="2012-07-14 12:55:47 +00:00", currency="USD", current_period_ends_at="2012-08-14 12:55:47 +00:00", current_period_started_at="2012-07-14 12:55:47 +00:00", plan="Recurly_Plan[href=https://api.recurly.com/v2/plans/starter] name="Starter", plan_code="starter", setup_fee_in_cents="", unit_amount_in_cents="">", quantity=2, state="active", subscription_add_ons=[], unit_amount_in_cents=1200, uuid="1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx3"';

$newstring = str_replace(", ", "&", $original);  // turns into querystring format &var=val
// you may need to use addslashes and/or replace the double quotes surrounding vars.

Next you use parse_str and it builds an associative array of names/values:

parse_str($newstring, $myarray);

Then you can print out and see how it looks and tweak:

print_r($myarray);

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 17 '12 at 15:50

several ways to handle this.

probably the easiest one: look in the API if you can get a more standardconform result. PHP has build-in functions to handle XML, JSON and several other formats, so that you would get an array or an object on which you can access the information bits.

one possible way to do it with this format: split at the ,, split again at = to get key => value pairs. (you may need to cut the first line, though, as I don't see a , after that.) Rough sketch, untested:

<?php $result = your_api_call();
$chunks = explode(',', $result);
$resultAsArray = array();
foreach ($chunks as $biggerPart) {
   $parts = explode('=', $biggerPart);
   $tmpKey = trim($parts[0]);
   $tmpValue = str_replace('"', '', $parts[1]);
   $resultAsArray[$tmpKey] = $tmpValue;
}

echo $resultAsArray['plan_code'];

Extract values from text string using PHP?

3 Answers3