preg_split

Description

array preg_split ( string pattern, string subject [, int limit [, int flags]] )

Returns an array containing substrings of subject split along boundaries matched by pattern.

If limit is specified, then only substrings up to limit are returned, and if limit is -1, it actually means "no limit", which is useful for specifying the flags.

flags can be any combination of the following flags (combined with bitwise | operator):

Example 1. preg_split() example : Get the parts of a search string <?php // split the phrase by any number of commas or space characters, // which include " ", \r, \t, \n and \f $keywords = preg_split("/[\s,]+/", "hypertext language, programming"); ?>

Example 2. Splitting a string into component characters <?php $str = 'string'; $chars = preg_split('//', $str, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY); print_r($chars); ?>

Example 3. Splitting a string into matches and their offsets <?php $str = 'hypertext language programming'; $chars = preg_split('/ /', $str, -1, PREG_SPLIT_OFFSET_CAPTURE); print_r($chars); ?> will yield: Array ( [0] => Array ( [0] => hypertext [1] => 0 ) [1] => Array ( [0] => language [1] => 10 ) [2] => Array ( [0] => programming [1] => 19 ) )

See also spliti(), split(), implode(), preg_match(), preg_match_all(), and preg_replace().