Yes, that would work. You could also print output like this from PHP:
and then in javascript:
The eval function will treat the plaintext as javascript; returning an array type object in this case. That'd work for a numerically indexed array, you're using string indicies but you can use the same principle,

Don't use this principle the other way round whatever you do; that is, don't send textcode from client to server and evaluate it. That's the biggest security hole you could possibly make.