Regex for parsing .strings files

Question

I need a PHP Regex that can parse .strings files. In particular, it needs to be able to handle comments, blank lines, escaped characters and angle brackets.

Example of a .strings file:

/* string one */
"StringOne"="\"1\"";

"StringTwo"="<2>";

/* Bob Dillon */
"Bob"="Dillon";

By request, the desired output would be something such as:

Array( [StringOne] => "\"1\"" [StringTwo] => "<2>" [Bob] => "Dillon" )

All help is greatly appreciated!

Is a .strings file Regular? If not, you want a full parser, not just a Regular Expression. — Peter Boughton, Nov 06 '09 at 09:52

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 29 '13 at 22:39

5

this?

    $r = '
    /* string one */
    "StringOne"="first \"string\"";

    "StringTwo"="2";

    /* Bob Dillon */
    "Bob"="Dillon";
    ';

    preg_match_all('~^\s*"((?:\\\\.|[^"])*)"[^"]+"((?:\\\\.|[^"])*)"~m', 
         $r, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);
    $parsed = array();
    foreach($matches as $m)
       $parsed[$m[1]] = $m[2];

    print_r($parsed);

prints

Array ( 
[StringOne] => first "string"
[StringTwo] => 2 
[Bob] => Dillon 
)

edited Jan 29 '13 at 22:39

alanaktion

1,326
1
11
18

answered Nov 06 '09 at 08:18

user187291

53,363
19
95
127

That doesn't handle brackets or escaped characters (see updated question). Closer than what I got to though! – hammerdr Nov 06 '09 at 08:26
Sorry, I misspoke. It *does* handle angle brackets but it does NOT handle escaped parenthesis. – hammerdr Nov 06 '09 at 08:27
Updated question to provide example output. – hammerdr Nov 06 '09 at 08:33
It doesn't strip the escape characters (backslashes) for me. Using PHP 5.4.14. My output is: `... [StringOne] => first \"string\" ...`. Any ideas? – akashivskyy Jul 11 '13 at 14:35
I'll try this. Thanks. Makes you wonder though if there isn't already any class or library handling this. I'll see if I can find any. Using regex to solve this problem does not feel like an optimal solution. – Jonny Jul 08 '14 at 03:26

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 08 '14 at 04:55

While I am using a PHP script as well, I am running it on a Mac so I thought I could whip up a Cocoa command line app to do the .strings parsing anyway. Which I did.

The code below is a command line utility which takes a filename parameter (the strings file) and spits out the content of that strings file as json (to stdout).

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

#import "NSDictionary+BVJSONString.h" // from http://stackoverflow.com/a/20262259/129202

#define ERRORCODE   (1)

int main(int argc, const char * argv[])
{

    @autoreleasepool {

        // insert code here...
        //NSLog(@"Hello, World!, argc: %d", argc);

        if (argc != 2) {
            NSLog(@"Specify file argument!");
            return ERRORCODE;
        }

        NSString* filepath = [NSString stringWithCString:argv[1] encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];

        NSError* error = nil;

        NSStringEncoding usedencoding;
        NSString* strings = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:filepath usedEncoding:&usedencoding error:&error];
        if (error) {
            NSLog(@"Error: %@", error);
            return ERRORCODE;
        }
        NSDictionary* dict = [strings propertyList];
        NSString* json = [dict bv_jsonStringWithPrettyPrint:NO];

        [json writeToFile:@"/dev/stdout" atomically:NO encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];
    }
    return 0;
}

It's a bit rough - it had better read from stdin or something - I'm not very used to writing these things so feel free to improve. Note that this is using Apple's own .strings parsing code, so should be better than most regexes.

Regex for parsing .strings files

2 Answers2