将选项卡式字符串转换为php数组

Question

I am trying to convert a tabbed formatted string into a php array. I attempted to convert each category into separate arrays then preg_match but that did not work out too well.. any suggestions?

Convert:

category 1
    subcategory 1
        item 1
        item 2
    subcategory 2
        item 1
        item 2
   subcategory 3
        item 1
        item 2           
category 2
    subcategory 1
        item 1
        item 2
    subcategory 2
        item 1
        item 2        
category 3
    subcategory 1
        item 1
        item 2
        item 3
        item 4

To:

$data = [
'category 1' =>[
    'subcategory 1' =>[
        'item 1',
        'item 2'
    ],
    'subcategory 2' =>[
        'item 1',
        'item 2'
    ],
    'subcategory 3' =>[
        'item 1',
        'item 2'
    ] 
],
'category 2' =>[
    'subcategory 1' =>[
        'item 1',
        'item 2'
    ],
    'subcategory 2' =>[
        'item 1',
        'item 2'
    ]
],
'category 3' =>[
    'subcategory 1' =>[
    'item 1',
    'item 2',
    'item 3',
    'item 4'            
    ]
]
];

Answer 1

Well, if your string is well formatted, here is a little explained function that could do it :

function($text){
    $arr = [];
    $category = "";
    $subcategory = "";
    foreach (explode("
", $text) as $line) {// For every line
        if (startsWith($line, '    ')){
            if (startsWith($line, '        ')) {
                // New Item
                // If it's a new item, you add it inside the current subcategory & category
                $arr[$category][$subcategory][] = substr($line, 8);// Removes the 8 spaces
            }
            else{
                // New Subcategory
                // If it's a new subcategory, you add it as an empty array inside the current category and set $subcategory to the current subcategory
                $subcategory = substr($line, 4);// Removes the 4 spaces
                $arr[$category][$subcategory] = [];
            }
        } else {
            // New Category
            // If it's a new category, you add it as an empty array and set $category to the current category
            $category = $line;
            $arr[$category] = [];
        }
    }
    return $arr;
}