Explode the string using the integer location

Question

My input is this:

$str = ' 1. Admin, Administrator,3. Visor, Super,4. Team, Super User,5. lastname, employee'

how can I have the following output using array Explode?

 array(
        [0] => Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => Admin [2] => Administrator)
        [1] => Array ( [0] => 3 [1] => Visor [2] => Super)
        [2] => Array ( [0] => 4 [1] => Team [2] => Super User)
        [3] => Array ( [0] => 5 [1] => lastname [2] => employee)
    )

implode is not what you desire. how is your output "1. Admin, Administrator,3. Visor, Super,4. Team, Super User,5. lastname, employee" to begin with, needs to be mentioned. — skrilled, Dec 10 '13 at 01:43
Like this? Do some homework yourself before you ask your next question. https://eval.in/77783 — scrowler, Dec 10 '13 at 01:51
If it's possible to have that second comma replaced by a semi colon or a new line char it would be much safer to process this data. I'm aware that might not be possible, but if it is make it happen. — Lenny, Dec 10 '13 at 01:52

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 10 '13 at 01:48

6

<?php
$str = '1. Admin, Administrator,3. Visor, Super,4. Team, Super User,5. lastname, employee';
$str = str_replace('.', ',', $str);
$arr = explode(',', $str);
$arr = array_chunk ($arr, 3); 
var_export($arr);

answered Dec 10 '13 at 01:48

srain

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 10 '13 at 01:54

Here is another option... This is not a really safe way to get data, but as long as the input is ALWAYS PERFECTLY in this format this will work. The main difference is this one trims the whitespace.

You could also use the other answer and just do str_replace(' ','' before you start

$myString="1. Admin, Administrator,3. Visor, Super,4. Team, Super User,5. lastname, employee";
$myOutput=array();
$myFirstSplit = explode(",",$myString);
foreach($myFirstSplit  as $myKey=> $myVal){
    $myNextSplit=explode('.',$myVal);
    if(count($myNextSplit) > 1){
        $myOutput[$myKey]=array(trim($myNextSplit[0]),trim($myNextSplit[1]));
    }else{
        $myOutput[$myKey-1][]=trim($myNextSplit[0]);
    }
}
var_dump($myOutput);

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 10 '13 at 02:10

Another solution which trims the output and is a little bit faster than srain's (nice) solution:

$str = '1. Admin, Administrator,3. Visor, Super,4. Team, Super User,5. lastname, employee';
$tok = strtok($str, ".,");
$output = array();
while ($tok !== false) {
    $output[] = trim($tok);
    $tok = strtok(".,");
}
$output = array_chunk($output, 3);

echo '<pre>';
print_r($output);

Explode the string using the integer location

3 Answers3