reading java-style properties file in PHP

It’s very strange that PHP only support the “parse_ini_string” as configuration function. I don’t like it at all! It has problems handling quotes, new lines, and other caveats.

The only benefit of parse_ini_string against Java Properties file is that it can handle “arrays”, but I don’t think that’s a benefit anyways. I had some trouble because I was wanting to use properties file in php for translations, since I only found buggy versions on the net I had build my own:

      function parse_properties($txtProperties) {
		$result = array();
		$lines = split("\n", $txtProperties);
		$key = "";
		$isWaitingOtherLine = false;
		foreach ($lines as $i => $line) {
			if (empty($line) || (!$isWaitingOtherLine && strpos($line, "#") === 0))
				continue;

			if (!$isWaitingOtherLine) {
				$key = substr($line, 0, strpos($line, '='));
				$value = substr($line, strpos($line, '=')+1, strlen($line));
			}
			else {
				$value .= $line;
			}	

			/* Check if ends with single '\' */
			if (strrpos($value, "\\") === strlen($value)-strlen("\\")) {
				$value = substr($value,0,strlen($value)-1)."\n";
				$isWaitingOtherLine = true;
			}
			else {
				$isWaitingOtherLine = false;
			}

			$result[$key] = $value;
			unset($lines[$i]);
		}

		return $result;
	}

This function can be used to create a php properties class. It should have the same behavior as the Java properties, so it should handle ” quotes and \ for new lines.

Let me know if it have bugs