Python style named parameters

[oddz]

Is this a decent way to achieve it? I'm not really a huge fan of eval() but it seems to be working well. Are there any possible problems with this solution potentially with long strings that span multiple lines perhaps?

function dictionaryToArrray() {
    
    $args = func_get_args();
    
    if(empty($args)) {
        return array();
    } else {
        eval('$properties = array('.rtrim(preg_replace('/(.*?):(\".*?\"|[0-9.]*?)(;|$)/s','\'$1\'=>$2,',implode(';',$args)),',').');');
        return $properties;
        
    }

}

echo '<pre>',print_r(dictionaryToArrray('a:"My String"','b:45','c:"Some other info"','d:6.4')),'</pre>'; 

Array
(
    [a] => My String
    [b] => 45
    [c] => Some other info
    [d] => 6.4
)