Parse a PHP file with Node.js and convert an array defined in the PHP script into a JSON object which the Node app can use.

node.js

var runner = require('child_process');

runner.exec(
  'php -r \'include("settings.php"); print json_encode($databases);\'', 
  function (err, stdout, stderr) {
    var connection = JSON.parse(stdout).default.default;
    
    console.log(connection.database);
    // result botdb
  }
);

settings.php

<?php

$databases['default']['default'] = array(
  'driver' => 'mysql',
  'database' => 'botdb',
  'username' => 'botuser',
  'password' => 'botpass',
  'host' => 'localhost',
  'prefix' => '',
);