preg_split

(PHP 3>= 3.0.9, PHP 4 >= 4.0.0)

preg_split -- Split string by a regular expression

Description

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

Note: Parameter flags was added in PHP 4 Beta 3.

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):

PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY

If this flag is set, only non-empty pieces will be returned by preg_split().

PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE

If this flag is set, parenthesized expression in the delimiter pattern will be captured and returned as well. This flag was added for 4.0.5.

Example 1. preg_split() example : Get the parts of a search string.


// 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.


$str = 'string';
$chars = preg_split('//', $str, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
print_r($chars);
     

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