What are the best practices for converting a preformatted text/table into a 2-dimensional array in PHP?

When converting a preformatted text or table into a 2-dimensional array in PHP, it is important to properly parse the text and extract the data into rows and columns. One approach is to use functions like explode() and preg_split() to split the text based on delimiters such as new lines and tabs. Then, iterate over the resulting array to construct the 2-dimensional array.

// Sample preformatted text/table
$text = "John\tDoe\t30\nJane\tSmith\t25";

// Split the text into rows based on new line
$rows = explode("\n", $text);

// Initialize the 2-dimensional array
$data = [];

// Iterate over each row to split into columns based on tabs
foreach ($rows as $row) {
    $columns = explode("\t", $row);
    $data[] = $columns;
}

// Output the 2-dimensional array
print_r($data);