Online PHP editor | output for 1QhM1

<?php $str = <<<'STR' Group test { Group test1 { #-# Type Val 1 typ1 10 2 typ2 10 3 typ3 10 } Group test2 { #-# Type Val 1 typ1 10 2 typ2 10 } } STR; $pattern = <<<'REGEX' ~ (?(DEFINE) (?<group> Group \s+ \g<groupName> \s* { \s* (?: \g<group> (?: \s+ \g<group>)* | \g<line> (?: \h*+ \s+ \g<line> )* )? \s* } ) (?<groupName> \w+ ) (?<line> \g<value> (?: \h+ \g<value>)* ) (?<value> [^\s{}]+ ) ) \A \s* \g<group> \s* \z (*:MAIN_GROUP) ~x REGEX; function group2array($group) { $ret = []; $index = 0; // this pattern extracts the group name and the group content preg_match( '~Group \s+ (?<name> \w+ ) \s* { \s* (?<content> .* \S ) \s* } ~sx', $group, $match ); $name = $match['name']; $content = $match['content']; $ret[$name] = []; preg_match_all( // this one extracts groups or lines of values '~ \s* (?<group> Group \s+ \w+ \s* { [^{}]*+ (?: \g<group> [^{}]* )*+ } ) | \s* (?<line> [^\s{}]+ (?: \h+ [^\s{}]+ )* ) ~x', $content, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER ); foreach($matches as $m) { if (isset($m['line'])) { $ret[$name][$index++] = preg_split('~\s+~', $m['line']); } else { $group = group2array($m['group']); $ret[$name][key($group)] = current($group); } } return $ret; } if ( preg_match($pattern, $str) ) { // check the string syntax before parsing $result = group2array($str); echo json_encode($result), PHP_EOL, print_r($result, true), PHP_EOL; }