<?php

// Example version.php file

$text = '

This is a version.php file with its contents, friends
and other variables. Let\'s see how we do parse it

defined(\'MOODLE_INTERNAL\') || die();

$plugin->version  = 2010073100;
$plugin->requires = 2010090501;   // Requires this Moodle version
$plugin->dependencies = array(
    \'mod_quiz\' => 2011090100,
    \'qtype_pmatch\' => ANY_VERSION);
';

// Very basic implementation ;-) Tons of checks/cleanup needed (empties, bad formed, injected...)

preg_match('/\$plugin\->dependencies\s*=\s*array\s*\((.*)\)/s', $text, $matches);
if (isset($matches[1])) {
    $ofinterest = preg_replace('/[ \t\']+/s', '', trim($matches[1])); // Whitespace, comma cleanup
    $ofinterest = preg_replace('/[\n\r]+/s', '\n', $ofinterest);      // CRLF cleanup
    $ofinterestarr = explode('\n', $ofinterest);
    foreach ($ofinterestarr as $dependency) {
        if (strpos($dependency, '=>') !== false) {
            $dependencyarr = explode('=>', $dependency);
            $dependencies[$dependencyarr[0]] = $dependencyarr[1];
        } else {
            die('wrong dependency spec');
        }
    }
    var_dump($dependencies);
} else {
    die('not dependencies found');
}