Ognl Like Path Parser

OgnlPath.php

$context = json_decode('{"this":{"that":{"some":[0,1,{"in":{"some":{"place":6}}}]}}}');
if ( ! $context ) throw new Exception('json parsing failed');
print OgnlPath::getValue('this.that.some[2].in.some.place', $context );

class OgnlPath {
  public static function getValue($expression, $context) {
    $tokens = preg_split('/(\[[^\]]+\])|(?:\.)/', $expression, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE | PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
    print_r($tokens);
    //print "context is " . print_r($context, true) . "\n";
    foreach ($tokens as $index => $match) {
      if ( preg_match('|^\[([^\]]+)]$|', $match, $indexMatches) ) {
        $index = $indexMatches[1];
        if ( ! is_array($context) ) throw new Exception('element is not an array for reference ' . $match);
        if ( $index > count($context) - 1) throw new Exception('array element out of bounds ' . $match);
        $context = $context[$index];
      } else {
        if ( property_exists($context, $match) ) {
          $context = $context->$match;
        }
      }
      //print "context is " . print_r($context, true) . "\n";
    }
    return $context;
  }
}