how to convert string to array ? as i am getting an array but it is in string format

Question

i have a var $subject when i print it by echo $subject i get this [["2","subject2","0","0"],["4","ccd","50","5"]]

but when i do echo gettype($subject) i get string

because of this i am not able to use foreach loop in order to iterate over $subject

how can i get it in array [["2","subject2","0","0"],["4","ccd","50","5"]] format

Answer 1

You can use json_decode to convert that string into an array:

$subject = '[["2","subject2","0","0"],["4","ccd","50","5"]]';
print_r(json_decode($subject, true));

Output:

Array ( 
    [0] => Array ( [0] => 2 [1] => subject2 [2] => 0 [3] => 0 ) 
    [1] => Array ( [0] => 4 [1] => ccd [2] => 50 [3] => 5 ) 
)

Demo on 3v4l.org

Answer 2

As mentioned by @nick use the json_decode function to make it an array.

$subject = '[["2","subject2","0","0"],["4","ccd","50","5"]]';
$stringToArray = json_decode($subject, true);
foreach($stringToArray as $key => $value){
    print_r($value);echo '<hr>';
}