Convert PostgreSQL array to PHP array

As neither of these solutions work with multidimentional arrays, so I offer here my recursive solution that works with arrays of any complexity:

function pg_array_parse($s, $start = 0, &$end = null)
{
    if (empty($s) || $s[0] != '{') return null;
    $return = array();
    $string = false;
    $quote='';
    $len = strlen($s);
    $v = '';
    for ($i = $start + 1; $i < $len; $i++) {
        $ch = $s[$i];

        if (!$string && $ch == '}') {
            if ($v !== '' || !empty($return)) {
                $return[] = $v;
            }
            $end = $i;
            break;
        } elseif (!$string && $ch == '{') {
            $v = pg_array_parse($s, $i, $i);
        } elseif (!$string && $ch == ','){
            $return[] = $v;
            $v = '';
        } elseif (!$string && ($ch == '"' || $ch == "'")) {
            $string = true;
            $quote = $ch;
        } elseif ($string && $ch == $quote && $s[$i - 1] == "\\") {
            $v = substr($v, 0, -1) . $ch;
        } elseif ($string && $ch == $quote && $s[$i - 1] != "\\") {
            $string = false;
        } else {
            $v .= $ch;
        }
    }

    return $return;
}

I haven't tested it too much, but looks like it works. Here you have my tests with results:

var_export(pg_array_parse('{1,2,3,4,5}'));echo "\n";
/*
array (
  0 => '1',
  1 => '2',
  2 => '3',
  3 => '4',
  4 => '5',
)
*/
var_export(pg_array_parse('{{1,2},{3,4},{5}}'));echo "\n";
/*
array (
  0 => 
  array (
    0 => '1',
    1 => '2',
  ),
  1 => 
  array (
    0 => '3',
    1 => '4',
  ),
  2 => 
  array (
    0 => '5',
  ),
)
*/
var_export(pg_array_parse('{dfasdf,"qw,,e{q\"we",\'qrer\'}'));echo "\n";
/*
array (
  0 => 'dfasdf',
  1 => 'qw,,e{q"we',
  2 => 'qrer',
)
*/
var_export(pg_array_parse('{,}'));echo "\n";
/*
array (
  0 => '',
  1 => '',
)
*/
var_export(pg_array_parse('{}'));echo "\n";
/*
array (
)
*/
var_export(pg_array_parse(null));echo "\n";
// NULL
var_export(pg_array_parse(''));echo "\n";
// NULL

---

P.S.: I know this is a very old post, but I couldn't find any solution for postgresql pre 9.2

If you have PostgreSQL 9.2 you can do something like this:

SELECT array_to_json(pg_array_result) AS new_name FROM tbl1;

The result will return the array as JSON

Then on the php side issue:

$array = json_decode($returned_field);

You can also convert back. Here are the JSON functions page