Scraping the contents of a javascript variable to a PHP variable?

Question

I have scraped some javascript (using simple_html_dom) and this is what I've come up with...

Contents of $MyScrape

<script type="text/javascript">
var initialInfo = [
    [
        [29, 30, 'bb1', 'bb2', '02/15/2013 20:00:00', '02/15/2013 00:00:00', 6, 'AT', '1 : 1', '2 : 3', , , '2 : 3'],
        [
            [29, 'bb1', 6.91, [
                    [
                        ['pears', [4]],
                        ['kiwis', [20]]
                    ]
                ],
                [
                    [36849, 'abcdefg', 6.24, [
                        [
                            ['apples', [3]],
                            ['oranges', [0]]
                        ]
                    ], 5, 'iff', 29, 2, 88, 'abc', 23, 180, 76]
                ],
                ['4231', [
                    [5, 1],
                    [7, 7]
                ]]
            ]
        ]
    ], 0
];
</script>

I am trying to get the contents of initialInfo to a PHP variable so I can do this....

$str = ????;
$jsonarray = json_decode($str, true);

foreach($jsonarray as $row)
{
    $id = $row[0][0]; //29
    $tc = $row[0][1]; //30
    $ab = $row[0][2]; //bb1
}

Anyone got an idea how I can do this (preferrably simply)?

Answer 1

Ok, here's what I did to get this working....

//Cut out the non-json stuff
  $start = strpos($MyScrape,'initialInfo = ')+14;
  $end = strpos($MyScrape,'</script>');
  $data = substr($MatchDetails, $start, ($end-$start));

//Convert the new string to JSON (as it's not quite right)

//Made single quotes into double so that JSON can read it.
  $fixedJSON = str_replace("'", '"', $data);
//change double commas with blank data inside so JSON can read it.
  $fixedCommas = str_replace(",,,", ", 0, 0,", $fixedJSON);
//remove the ending semicolon as JSON can't read it.
  $removedSemiColon = str_replace(";", "", $fixedCommas);

$jsonarray = json_decode($removedSemiColon);

//Now I can actually get stuff out of it...
  echo $row[0][0]; //29
  echo $row[0][1]; //30
  echo $row[0][2]; //bb1

Answer 2

To treat it as JSON, you have to fix a few things:

• JSON uses double quotes, not single quotes.
• The two consecutive commas in ..., '1 : 1', '2 : 3', , , '2 : 3'], aren't valid JSON.
• You have to trim off the variable declaration (var initialInfo =).
• You have to trim off that ending semicolon.

You could also write your own parser, as this code uses only array literals, strings, and numbers.

Answer 3

This might get you the string:

function js_array($str, $array_name)
{
    $pattern = "/$array_name ?\[[\s\S]*?\] ?\= ?[\'\"]([\s\S.]*?)[\'\"];/";

    preg_match_all($pattern, $str, $matches);

    $array = (isset($matches[1])) ? $matches[1] : array();

    return $str;
}
$str = js_array($MyScrape, 'initialInfo');

Then I might try json_decode, as you mentioned.

Let me know if it works (or not)!

Answer 4

It may not work for older browsers, but you could use JSON.stringify(initialinfo), and store it into a hidden field, then extract it with PHP.