split

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

splitSplit string into array by regular expression

Description

array split ( string $pattern , string $string [, int $limit = -1 ] )

Splits a string into array by regular expression.

Warning

This function has been DEPRECATED as of PHP 5.3.0. Relying on this feature is highly discouraged.

Parameters

pattern

Case sensitive regular expression.

If you want to split on any of the characters which are considered special by regular expressions, you'll need to escape them first. If you think split() (or any other regex function, for that matter) is doing something weird, please read the file regex.7, included in the regex/ subdirectory of the PHP distribution. It's in manpage format, so you'll want to do something along the lines of man /usr/local/src/regex/regex.7 in order to read it.

string

The input string.

limit

If limit is set, the returned array will contain a maximum of limit elements with the last element containing the whole rest of string.

Return Values

Returns an array of strings, each of which is a substring of string formed by splitting it on boundaries formed by the case-sensitive regular expression pattern.

If there are n occurrences of pattern, the returned array will contain n+1 items. For example, if there is no occurrence of pattern, an array with only one element will be returned. Of course, this is also true if string is empty. If an error occurs, split() returns FALSE.

Examples

Example #1 split() example

To split off the first four fields from a line from /etc/passwd:

<?php
list($user$pass$uid$gid$extra) =
    
split(":"$passwd_line5);
?>

Example #2 split() example

To parse a date which may be delimited with slashes, dots, or hyphens:

<?php
// Delimiters may be slash, dot, or hyphen
$date "04/30/1973";
list(
$month$day$year) = split('[/.-]'$date);
echo 
"Month: $month; Day: $day; Year: $year<br />\n";
?>

Notes

Note:

As of PHP 5.3.0, the regex extension is deprecated in favor of the PCRE extension. Calling this function will issue an E_DEPRECATED notice. See the list of differences for help on converting to PCRE.

Tip

split() is deprecated as of PHP 5.3.0. preg_split() is the suggested alternative to this function. If you don't require the power of regular expressions, it is faster to use explode(), which doesn't incur the overhead of the regular expression engine.

Tip

For users looking for a way to emulate Perl's @chars = split('', $str) behaviour, please see the examples for preg_split() or str_split().

See Also

  • preg_split() - Split string by a regular expression
  • spliti() - Split string into array by regular expression case insensitive
  • str_split() - Convert a string to an array
  • explode() - Split a string by string
  • implode() - Join array elements with a string
  • chunk_split() - Split a string into smaller chunks
  • wordwrap() - Wraps a string to a given number of characters

Коментарии

split() doesn't like NUL characters within the string, it treats the first one it meets as the end of the string, so if you have data you want to split that can contain a NUL character you'll need to convert it into something else first, eg:

$line=str_replace(chr(0),'',$line);
2002-05-17 06:27:57
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
[Ed. note: Close. The pipe *is* an operator in PHP, but
the reason this fails is because it's also an operator
in the regex syntax. The distinction here is important
since a PHP operator inside a string is just a character.]

The reason your code:

$line = "12|3|Fred"; 
list ($msgid, $msgref, $msgtopic)=split('|', $line); 

didn't work is because the "|" symbol is an operator in PHP. If you want to use the pipe symbol as a delimiter you must excape it with a back slash, "\|". You code should look like this:

$line = "12|3|Fred"; 
list ($msgid, $msgref, $msgtopic)=split('\|', $line);
2002-05-31 15:56:20
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
This is a good way to display a comma delimited file with two columns.  The first column is the URL's description, the second is the actual URL.

<ul>
<?php
  $fname
="relatedlinks.csv";
 
$fp=fopen($fname,"r") or die("Error found.");
 
$line fgets$fp1024 );
  while(!
feof($fp))
  {
    list(
$desc,$url,$dummy) = split","$line);
    print 
"<li>";
    print 
"<a href='$url'>$desc</a>";
    print 
"</li>\n";
   
$line fgets$fp1024 );
  }
 
fclose($fp);
?>
</ul>
2002-06-12 14:30:15
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
If you need to do a split on a period make sure you escape the period out..

$ext_arr = split("\.","something.jpg");
... because
$ext_arr = split(".","something.jpg"); won't work properly.
2002-06-16 21:48:09
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Ups! It seems that neither explode nor split REALY takes a STRING but only a single character as a string for splitting the string.
 I found this problem in one of my codes when trying to split a string using ";\n" as breaking string. The result, only ";" was thaken... the rest of the string was ignored.
 Same when I tried to substitute "\n" by any other thing. :(
2002-06-17 15:50:15
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
It's evident but not mentioned in the documentation that using asterisks is more restricted than in a normal regular expression.

for exaple you cannot say:

split(";*",$string);

because what if there's no ";" separator?(which is covered by this regular expression) 

so you have to use at least

split(";+",$quotatxt);

in this situation.
2002-07-21 21:51:45
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
In answer to gwyne at gmx dot net, dec 1, 2002:

For split(), when using a backslash as the delimiter, you have to *double escape* the backslash.

example:
==================================
<pre>
<?
$line 
'stuff\\\thing\doodad\\';
$linearray split('\\\\'$line); //<--NOTE USE OF FOUR(4)backslashes
print join(":"$linearray);
?>
</pre>

==================================
output is:

<pre>
stuff::thing:doodad:
</pre>
2003-01-10 15:51:43
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Автор:
php4.3.0

strange things happen with split

this didn't work
$vontag $vonmonat were empty strings

<?php
function ckdate($fromdate="01.01"$todate="31.12")
{
   
$nowyear date("Y");
    list (
$vontag $vonmonat) = split ('.' $fromdate); // << bad
   
$vondatum "$nowyear-$vonmonat-$vontag";
    list (
$bistag $bismonat) = split ('.' $todate); // << bad
   
$bisdatum "$nowyear-$bismonat-$bistag";
   
$von strtotime($vondatum);
   
$bis strtotime($bisdatum);
   
$now time();
    if ((
$now <= $bis) and ($now >= $von))
    {
        return 
TRUE;
    }
    else
    {
        return 
FALSE;
    }
}
?>

however this one worked perfectly

<?php
function ckdate($fromdate="01.01"$todate="31.12")
{
   
$nowyear date("Y");
    list (
$vontag $vonmonat) = split ('[.]' $fromdate); // << good
   
$vondatum "$nowyear-$vonmonat-$vontag";
    list (
$bistag $bismonat) = split ('[.]' $todate); // << good
   
$bisdatum "$nowyear-$bismonat-$bistag";
   
$von strtotime($vondatum);
   
$bis strtotime($bisdatum);
   
$now time();
    if ((
$now <= $bis) and ($now >= $von))
    {
        return 
TRUE;
    }
    else
    {
        return 
FALSE;
    }
}
?>

btw this fn checks if $now if between $fromdate and $todate
use it if you like
2003-10-08 15:26:55
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
> strange things happen with split
> this didn't work
> $vontag $vonmonat were empty strings
...
> list ($vontag , $vonmonat) = split ('.' , $fromdate); // << bad

Split is acting exactly as it should; it splits on regular expressions.
A period is a regular expression pattern for a single character.
So, an actual period must be escaped with a backslash:  '\.'
A period within brackets is not an any-character pattern, because it does
not make sense in that context.

Beware that regular expressions can be confusing becuase there
are a few different varieties of patterns.
2003-10-24 15:14:40
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
If you want to use split to check on line feeds (\n), the following won't work:

$line = split("\n", $input_several_lines_long);

You really have to do this instead, notice the second slash:
$line = split("\\n", $input_several_lines_long);

Took me a little while to figure out.
2003-11-21 11:33:58
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
I'd like to correct myself, I found that after testing my last solution it will create 5 lines no matter what... So I added this to make sure that it only displays 5 if there are five newlines. :-)

<?php 
    $MaxNewLines 
5

   
$BRCount substr_count($Message'<br />'); 
    if (
$BRCount<$MaxNewLines
   
$MaxNewLines=$BRCount
    else if(
$BRCount == 0
   
$MaxNewLines=1

   
$Message str_replace(chr(13), "<br />"$Message); 
   
$MessageArray split("<br />"$Message$MaxNewLines); 
   
$Message ""$u=0
    do    { 
   
$Message.=$MessageArray[$u].'<br />'
   
$u++; 
    } while(
$u<($MaxNewLines-1)); 
   
$Message.=str_replace("<br />"," ",$MessageArray[$u]); 
   
?> 

-Tim
http://www.alphibia.com
2004-03-31 09:19:56
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Though this is obvious, the manual is a bit incorrect when claiming that the return will always be 1+number of time the split pattern occures.  If the split pattern is the first part of the string, the return will still be 1.  E.g.

$a = split("zz," "zzxsj.com");
count($a);

=> 1.

The return of this can not in anyway be seperated from the return where the split pattern is not found.
2004-11-03 18:10:42
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Автор:
A correction to a earlier note
If you want to use split to check on line feeds (\n), the following won't work:

$line = split("\n", $input_several_lines_long);

You really have to do this instead, notice the second slash:
$line = split("/\n", $input_several_lines_long);

Took me a little while to figure to do
2005-01-17 12:09:14
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Автор:
moritz's quotesplit didn't work for me. It seemed to split on a comma even though it was between a pair of quotes. However, this did work:

function quotesplit($s, $splitter=',')
{
//First step is to split it up into the bits that are surrounded by quotes and the bits that aren't. Adding the delimiter to the ends simplifies the logic further down

    $getstrings = split('\"', $splitter.$s.$splitter);

//$instring toggles so we know if we are in a quoted string or not
    $delimlen = strlen($splitter);
    $instring = 0;

    while (list($arg, $val) = each($getstrings))
    {
        if ($instring==1)
        {
//Add the whole string, untouched to the result array.
            $result[] = $val;
            $instring = 0;
        }
        else
        {
//Break up the string according to the delimiter character
//Each string has extraneous delimiters around it (inc the ones we added above), so they need to be stripped off
            $temparray = split($splitter, substr($val, $delimlen, strlen($val)-$delimlen-$delimlen ) );

            while(list($iarg, $ival) = each($temparray))
            {
                $result[] = trim($ival);
            }
            $instring = 1;
        }
    }
    return $result;
}
2005-02-18 05:53:04
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
wchris's quotesplit assumes that anything that is quoted must also be a complete delimiter-seperated entry by itself.  This version does not.  It also uses split's argument order.

    function quotesplit( $splitter=',', $s )
    {
        //First step is to split it up into the bits that are surrounded by quotes
        //and the bits that aren't. Adding the delimiter to the ends simplifies
        //the logic further down

        $getstrings = explode('"', $splitter.$s.$splitter);

        //$instring toggles so we know if we are in a quoted string or not
        $delimlen = strlen($splitter);
        $instring = 0;

        while (list($arg, $val) = each($getstrings))
        {
            if ($instring==1)
            {
                //Add the whole string, untouched to the previous value in the array
                $result[count($result)-1] = $result[count($result)-1].$val;
                $instring = 0;
            }
            else
            {
                //Break up the string according to the delimiter character
                //Each string has extraneous delimiters around it (inc the ones we added
                //above), so they need to be stripped off
                $temparray = split($splitter, substr($val, $delimlen, strlen($val)-$delimlen-$delimlen+1 ) );

                while(list($iarg, $ival) = each($temparray))
                {
                    $result[] = trim($ival);
                }
                $instring = 1;
            }
        }

        return $result;
    }
2005-06-29 23:50:39
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Actually, this version is better than the last I submitted.  The goal here is to be able to engage in *multiple* delimeter removal passes; for all but the last pass, set the third value to "1", and everything should go well.

    function quotesplit( $splitter=',', $s, $restore_quotes=0 )
    {
        //First step is to split it up into the bits that are surrounded by quotes
        //and the bits that aren't. Adding the delimiter to the ends simplifies
        //the logic further down

        $getstrings = explode('"', $splitter.$s.$splitter);

        //$instring toggles so we know if we are in a quoted string or not
        $delimlen = strlen($splitter);
        $instring = 0;

        while (list($arg, $val) = each($getstrings))
        {
            if ($instring==1)
            {
                if( $restore_quotes )
                {
                    //Add the whole string, untouched to the previous value in the array
                    $result[count($result)-1] = $result[count($result)-1].'"'.$val.'"';
                } else {
                    //Add the whole string, untouched to the array
                    $result[] = $val;
                }
                $instring = 0;
            }
            else
            {
                //Break up the string according to the delimiter character
                //Each string has extraneous delimiters around it (inc the ones we added
                //above), so they need to be stripped off
                $temparray = split($splitter, substr($val, $delimlen, strlen($val)-$delimlen-$delimlen+1 ) );

                while(list($iarg, $ival) = each($temparray))
                {
                    $result[] = trim($ival);
                }
                $instring = 1;
            }
        }

        return $result;
    }
2005-06-30 00:01:57
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
The example from ramkumar rajendran did not work. 
$line = split("/\n", $input_several_lines_long);
I do not know why this does not work for me.

The following has worked for me to get a maximum of 2 array parts separated by the first new line (independant if saved under UNIX or WINDOWS):
$line = preg_split('/[\n\r]+/',$input_several_lines_long,2);
Also empty lines are not considered here.
2005-11-04 06:34:13
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Original problem:
=================

I've try using split function.

<?php
$ferro
="2&#65533;12";
$valore=split("[&#65533;]",$ferro);
echo 
$ferro."<br>";
echo 
"p1-".$valore[0]."<br>";
echo 
"p2-".$valore[1]."<br>";
echo 
"p3-".$valore[2]."<br>";
$ferro="2d12";
$valore=split("[d]",$ferro);
echo 
$ferro."<br>";
echo 
"p1-".$valore[0]."<br>";
echo 
"p2-".$valore[1]."<br>";
echo 
"p3-".$valore[2]."<br>";
?>

This return:
============

2&#65533;12
p1-2
p2-
p3-12
2d12
p1-2
p2-12
p3-

I use charset UTF-8. When I use char &#65533; the split function ad an empty string between "2" and "12"... Why?

Explanation:
============

UTF-8 charset codes some characters (like the "&#65533;" character) into two bytes. In fact the regular expresion "[&#65533;]" contains 4 bytes (4 non-unicode characters). To demonstrate the real situation I wrote following example:

$ferro="2de12";
$valore=split("[de]",$ferro);
echo $ferro."<br>";
echo "p1-".$valore[0]."<br>";
echo "p2-".$valore[1]."<br>";
echo "p3-".$valore[2]."<br>";

This returns:
=============

2d12
p1-2
p2-
p3-12
2006-02-08 06:26:10
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Автор:
If you are looking for EITHER open square brackets OR close square brackets, then '[[]]' won't work (reasonably expected), but neither will '[\[\]]', nor with any number of escapes. HOWEVER, if your pattern is '[][]' it will work.
2007-03-14 14:53:06
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Автор:
// Split a string into words on boundaries of one or more spaces, tabs or new-lines
$s = "Please cut   \t me \n in pieces";
$words = split("[\n\r\t ]+", $s);
print_r($words);

// Output:
Array
(
    [0] => Please
    [1] => cut
    [2] => me
    [3] => in
    [4] => pieces
)
2007-05-19 01:40:35
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Автор:
In response to  the getCSVValues() function posted by justin at cam dot org, my testing indicates that it has a problem with a CSV string like this:

1,2,"3,""4,5"",6",7

This parses as:

array(6) {
  [0]=>
  string(1) "1"
  [1]=>
  string(1) "2"
  [2]=>
  string(4) "3,"4"
  [3]=>
  string(1) "5"
  [4]=>
  string(0) ""
  [5]=>
  string(1) "7"
}

instead of:

array(4) {
  [0]=>
  string(1) "1"
  [1]=>
  string(1) "2"
  [2]=>
  string(9) "3,"4,5",6"
  [3]=>
  string(1) "7"
}

To fix this, I changed the second substr_count to look for an odd number of quotes, as opposed to any quotes at all:

<?php
function getCSVValues($string$separator=",")
{
   
$elements explode($separator$string);
    for (
$i 0$i count($elements); $i++) {
       
$nquotes substr_count($elements[$i], '"');
        if (
$nquotes %== 1) {
            for (
$j $i+1$j count($elements); $j++) {
                if (
substr_count($elements[$j], '"') %== 1) { // Look for an odd-number of quotes
                    // Put the quoted string's pieces back together again
                   
array_splice($elements$i$j-$i+1,
                       
implode($separatorarray_slice($elements$i$j-$i+1)));
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
        if (
$nquotes 0) {
           
// Remove first and last quotes, then merge pairs of quotes
           
$qstr =& $elements[$i];
           
$qstr substr_replace($qstr''strpos($qstr'"'), 1);
           
$qstr substr_replace($qstr''strrpos($qstr'"'), 1);
           
$qstr str_replace('""''"'$qstr);
        }
    }
    return 
$elements;
}
?>
2008-02-29 17:39:15
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Those of you trying to use split for CSV, it won't always work as expected. Instead, try using a simple stack method:

<?php

   
/**
     * Create a 2D array from a CSV string
     *
     * @param mixed $data 2D array
     * @param string $delimiter Field delimiter
     * @param string $enclosure Field enclosure
     * @param string $newline Line seperator
     * @return
     */
   
function parse($data$delimiter ','$enclosure '"'$newline "\n"){
       
$pos $last_pos = -1;
       
$end strlen($data);
       
$row 0;
       
$quote_open false;
       
$trim_quote false;

       
$return = array();

       
// Create a continuous loop
       
for ($i = -1;; ++$i){
            ++
$pos;
           
// Get the positions
           
$comma_pos strpos($data$delimiter$pos);
           
$quote_pos strpos($data$enclosure$pos);
           
$newline_pos strpos($data$newline$pos);

           
// Which one comes first?
           
$pos min(($comma_pos === false) ? $end $comma_pos, ($quote_pos === false) ? $end $quote_pos, ($newline_pos === false) ? $end $newline_pos);

           
// Cache it
           
$char = (isset($data[$pos])) ? $data[$pos] : null;
           
$done = ($pos == $end);

           
// It it a special character?
           
if ($done || $char == $delimiter || $char == $newline){

               
// Ignore it as we're still in a quote
               
if ($quote_open && !$done){
                    continue;
                }

               
$length $pos - ++$last_pos;

               
// Is the last thing a quote?
               
if ($trim_quote){
                   
// Well then get rid of it
                   
--$length;
                }

               
// Get all the contents of this column
               
$return[$row][] = ($length 0) ? str_replace($enclosure $enclosure$enclosuresubstr($data$last_pos$length)) : '';

               
// And we're done
               
if ($done){
                    break;
                }

               
// Save the last position
               
$last_pos $pos;

               
// Next row?
               
if ($char == $newline){
                    ++
$row;
                }

               
$trim_quote false;
            }
           
// Our quote?
           
else if ($char == $enclosure){

               
// Toggle it
               
if ($quote_open == false){
                   
// It's an opening quote
                   
$quote_open true;
                   
$trim_quote false;

                   
// Trim this opening quote?
                   
if ($last_pos == $pos){
                        ++
$last_pos;
                    }

                }
                else {
                   
// It's a closing quote
                   
$quote_open false;

                   
// Trim the last quote?
                   
$trim_quote true;
                }

            }

        }

        return 
$return;
    }

?>

This *should* work for any valid CSV string, regardless of what it contains inside its quotes (using RFC 4180). It should also be faster than most of the others I've seen. It's very simple in concept, and thoroughly commented.
2008-03-25 17:32:10
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Автор:
Thank you Dave for your code below.  Here is one change I made to avoid a redundant quote at the end of some lines (at least when I used excel: 

Added another --length;  into the if statement below:

                // Is the last thing a quote?
                if ($trim_quote){
                    // Well then get rid of it
                    --$length;
        // ADD TO FIX extra quote
    --$length;
                }
2008-04-09 18:25:58
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
The following code will mimick the explode functionality: explode( " ", $s );  The difference, of course, is that the split method takes a regular expression instead of a string.

$s = "Split this sentence by spaces";
$words = split("[ ]+", $s);
print_r($words);

Output:
Array
(
    [0] => Split
    [1] => this
    [2] => sentence
    [3] => by
    [4] => spaces
)
http://www.codesplunk.com/nr/questions/php12.html
2008-07-13 15:12:17
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html
Автор:
I kept running into the same issue Chris Tyler experienced with lewis [ at t] hcoms [d dot t] co [d dot t] uk's function before realizing that Chris had come up with a solution. However, that solution was just a little off it seems, unless your CSV only contains one line.

If you simply add another --length; in the place you suggested, then the function will always trim the last two characters on the line. Since the newline character is the last character on the line and the redundant quote (or other enclosure) is the second to last character, this works for the final segment. But when parsing segments that do not include a newline character, you end up trimming the redundant enclosure and the last character before the enclosure.

For example,

"he","she","him","her"\r\n

becomes

[0] => h
[1] => sh
[2] => hi
[3] => her

Since the segment could end with the enclosure (i.e., ") or the enclosure followed by the newline (i.e., "\r\n), you have make sure you are only adding another --length; when the latter is the case. Replacing the code block that you suggested with the following will do the trick.

# Is the last thing a newline?
if( $char == $newline )
{
    # Well then get rid of it
    --$length;
}

# Is the last thing a quote?
if( $trim_quote )
{
    # Well then get rid of it
    --$length;
}

I've tested this only for the purposes of the script I'm working on at this time. So, there could be other bugs I haven't come across, but this seems like the easiest way to eliminate the redundant enclosure.
2008-12-04 15:45:33
http://php5.kiev.ua/manual/ru/function.split.html

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