[Naatan]

In my opinion; if you're gonna repeat the exact same piece of code more than twice.. put it into a function..

function getStuff() {
   $string = array();
   $string['a'] = $a stuff;
   $string['b'] = $b stuff;
   $string['c'] = $c stuff;
   return $string;
}

if(something)
{
   $str = getStuff();
   do something with $str['a'] $str['b'] and $str['c']
}
else
{
    do something else
}
if(another thing)
{
   do something
}
else
{
   $str = getStuff();
   do something with $str['a'] $str['b'] and $str['c']
}
if(one last thing)
{
   $str = getStuff();
   do something with $str['a'] $str['b'] and $str['c']
}
else
{
   do something else
}

"Problem" solved