CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phparrayseval
Shlomo
Shlomo

Reputation: 3990

Store array in a string to eval() later

Having problems with eval(). I am forced to store strings in an array that are exectuted later on.

Now, storing strings in the string is no problem. But how do I store an array in there? Since I will NOT have access to the variable, I want the array directly stored to this string.

See this code:

    // ----------------------
    // -- class A
    $strId    = 'id_1234';
    $strClass = 'classname';
    $arParams = array('pluginid' => 'monitor', 'title' => 'Monitor', ...);

    $strClone = 'openForm(desktop(),"'.$strId.'","'.$strClass.'",'.$arParams.');';

    $this->menu = array( "clone" => $strClone, ... );

    // ----------------------
    // -- class B
    // loop through $this->menu, then..
    {
      eval( $this->menu[$item] );
    }

    // ----------------------
    // -- class C
    function openForm( $owner, $id, $class, $params )
    {
      ...
    }

Everything works perfectly except for the array $arParams.

There is an error: PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ')', expecting '(' in ... (441) : eval()'d code on line 1

What is the problem? Can I do this without serialize()?

EDIT:

I have set up a representation of what is going on. If you get this to run, then it is fixed:

$ar = array('a' => 'value1', 'b' => 'value2');
$str = "something";

$run = " a('".$str."', \$ar); "; // this line may be changed

// this is done to represent the loss of the variables in another class
unset($ar);
unset($str);

// $run is kept
eval( $run );

function a($str, $ar) {
    echo "\$str="         . $str      . "<br>";
    echo "\$ar['a']="     . $ar['a']    . "<br>";
    echo "\$ar['b']="     . $ar['b']    . "<br>";
}

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1056

Answers (3)

RickN
RickN

Reputation: 13500

When you're running the function a() in your eval'ed string, the variable $ar doesn't exist anymore. That's triggering an error, which causes the eval() to fail.

Since you're using eval(), a quick-and-dirty hacky way to fix it seems appropriate. ;-)

Instead of doing this: 

$run = " a('".$str."', \$ar); ";

You can do this:

$run = " a('$str', ". var_export($ar, true) ."); ";

This will cause the string $run to look like this if you were to echo it:

a('something', array(
  'a' => 'value1',
  'b' => 'value2',
));

So now you're passing the array directly into the function call, instead of passing a variable.

Upvotes: 2

Shlomo
Shlomo

Reputation: 3990

I now use this hack:

$strParams = " array(";
foreach($arParams as $strKey => $strVal) {
   $strParams .= "'".$strKey."' => '".$strVal."',";
}
$strParams = substr($strParams, 0, -1) . ") ";

// later on
... => " openForm(desktop(),'".$strId."','".$strClass."',".$strParams."); "

Upvotes: 0

Caner Korkmaz
Caner Korkmaz

Reputation: 407

Yes, change $arParams to this:

$arParams = 'array("pluginid" => "monitor", "title" => "Monitor", ...)';

Upvotes: 0

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