Regex to parse comment blocks & parse their contents

Question

I want a regex that will look at a string like this, get the "card" value from each of these comment blocks and also, TRUE if there is a "disabled":true or "hide":true mark (false otherwise) and return an array of the matches and their status. Here's an example of a string:

<!-- wp:genesis-custom-blocks/blockname {
    "card":"card name 1",
    "boxes":"multiple boxes",
    "selected":false,
    "hide":true} /-->

more content

<!-- wp:genesis-custom-blocks/blockname {
    "card":"card name 2",
    "boxes":"multiple boxes",
    "selected":false,
    "hide":true} /-->

<div>tags, etc</div>

<!-- wp:genesis-custom-blocks/blockname2 {
    "card":"card name 4",
    "boxes":"multiple boxes",
    "selected":false,
    "hide":true} /-->

<!-- wp:genesis-custom-blocks/blockname10 {
    "selected":false} /-->

<!-- wp:genesis-custom-blocks/blockname2 {
    "card":"card name 6",
    "selected":false} /-->

other content

<!-- wp:genesis-custom-blocks/blockname2 {
    "card":"card name 5",
    "boxes":"multiple boxes",
    "selected":false,
    "disabled":true} /--> 

<!-- wp:genesis-custom-blocks/blockname2 {
    "card":"card name 5",
    "boxes":"multiple boxes",
    "selected":false} /-->

so for example for the string above I'd want:

[
    ["card name 1", true],
    ["card name 2", true],
    ["card name 4", true],
    ["card name 6", false],
    ["card name 5", true],
    ["card name 5", false]
]

I used:

preg_match_all('/"card":"(.*?)"/m', $content, $matches);

Which gets the cards values, but not the other information. What's the best way to do this? I know it will use some version of [hide|disabled]. "card" will always be the first value in these blocks, if that makes a difference.

Everything after wp:genesis-custom-blocks/blockname looks like JSON. So I suggest you extract the comment block contents, remove that word from the beginning, and use json_decode() to parse it. — Barmar
– Barmar, Commented Apr 11, 2024 at 23:32

Barmar · Accepted Answer · 2024-04-11 23:42:31Z

2

Use a regular expression to match the comment block, and get the JSON from inside it. Then you can use json_decode() to parse it.

preg_match_all('#<!-- wp:genesis-custom-blocks/blockname\d* (.*?) /-->#s', $content, $matches);
$results = array_map(fn ($json) => json_decode($json, true), $matches[1]);
var_dump($results);

output:

array(7) {
  [0]=>
  array(4) {
    ["card"]=>
    string(11) "card name 1"
    ["boxes"]=>
    string(14) "multiple boxes"
    ["selected"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["hide"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
  [1]=>
  array(4) {
    ["card"]=>
    string(11) "card name 2"
    ["boxes"]=>
    string(14) "multiple boxes"
    ["selected"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["hide"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
  [2]=>
  array(4) {
    ["card"]=>
    string(11) "card name 4"
    ["boxes"]=>
    string(14) "multiple boxes"
    ["selected"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["hide"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
  [3]=>
  array(1) {
    ["selected"]=>
    bool(false)
  }
  [4]=>
  array(2) {
    ["card"]=>
    string(11) "card name 6"
    ["selected"]=>
    bool(false)
  }
  [5]=>
  array(4) {
    ["card"]=>
    string(11) "card name 5"
    ["boxes"]=>
    string(14) "multiple boxes"
    ["selected"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["disabled"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
  [6]=>
  array(3) {
    ["card"]=>
    string(11) "card name 5"
    ["boxes"]=>
    string(14) "multiple boxes"
    ["selected"]=>
    bool(false)
  }
}

answered Apr 11, 2024 at 23:42

Barmar

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3 Comments

user18102663 Over a year ago

Oooh this is nice!

user18102663 Over a year ago

I get the "unexpected '=>' (T_DOUBLE_ARROW), expecting ',' or ')'" on the 2nd line though.

user18102663 Over a year ago

It's just my version of PHP though. Thanks!

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