Yesterday, while trying to figure out the best way to deal with PostgreSQL arrays in PHP, I came across the new str_getcsv() function in PHP as of 5.3. This function works much the same as fgetcsv to parse a CSV line, except that it works on a string instead of a file.
For quick reference, CSV looks like this:
"My Name",14,"32,000","2009-04-15"
And the return value of a PostgreSQL array looks like this:
{"My Name",14,"32,000","2009-04-15"}Notice the similarities?
We can use PHP's trim and str_getcsv to turn this PostgreSQL array into a PHP array:
<?php $data = str_getcsv(trim($record->value, "{}")); ?>
Simple as simple does. As long as your array has only a single dimension. If you're using multidimensional arrays in PostgreSQL then you're dead to me.