How to deserialize this string into a PHP array of key => value pairs?

Question

I'm calling the script at: http://phat-reaction.com/googlefonts.php?format=php

And I need to convert the results into a PHP array format like the one I'm currently hard coding:

$googleFonts = array(
    "" => "None",
    "Abel"=>"Abel",
    "Abril+Fatface"=>"Abril Fatface",
    "Aclonica"=>"Aclonica",
    etc...
    );

The php returned is serialized:

a:320:{
    i:0;
    a:3:{
        s:11:"font-family";
        s:32:"font-family: 'Abel', sans-serif;";
        s:9:"font-name";
        s:4:"Abel";
        s:8:"css-name";
        s:4:"Abel";
        }
    i:1;
    a:3:{
        s:11:"font-family";
        s:38:"font-family: 'Abril Fatface', cursive;";
        s:9:"font-name";
        s:13:"Abril Fatface";
        s:8:"css-name";
        s:13:"Abril+Fatface";
        }

        etc...

How can I translate that into my array?

Solution 1

You can do this by unserializing the data (using unserialize()) and then iterating through it:

$fonts = array();

$contents = file_get_contents('http://phat-reaction.com/googlefonts.php?format=php');
$arr = unserialize($contents);

foreach($arr as $font)
{
    $fonts[$font['css-name']] = $font['font-name'];
}

Depending on what you're using this for, it may be a good idea to cache the results so you're not fetching external data each time the script runs.

Solution 2

Use unserialize(): http://www.php.net/unserialize

Comments

[mario]

That's quite simply PHPs serialization format. Use unserialize() to turn it back.