How not to explode sub-delimiter inside delimeter?

Question

I have this string:

text example (some text) (usb, apple (fruit), computer (technology), nature: sky)

I need this var_dump() output with explode "(":

array(3) {
  [0]=>
  string(34) "text example"
  [1]=>
  string(12) "some text"
  [2]=>
  string(12) "usb, apple, computer, nature: sky"
}

fruit and technology could stay here, it's not so important. So with explode there is no way to exclude sub-delimeters? Only "preg_split"? — kostya572, Aug 08 '15 at 22:28

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 08 '15 at 23:18

You can use php function preg_replace() with regex pattern to remove the text you don't want to be presented in output and after that use the explode function :

$string = 'text example (some text) (usb, apple (fruit), computer (technology), nature: sky)';

//Remove (fruit) and (technology) from string 
$newString = preg_replace('/ \((\w+)\)/i', ', ', $string);

//Explode with new string
$output = explode(" (",$newString);

//Remove ')' from output
var_dump(preg_replace('/\)/i', '', $output));

Result :

array(3) { 
  [0]=> string(12) "text example" 
  [1]=> string(9) "some text" 
  [2]=> string(35) "usb, apple, computer, nature: sky" 
}

Hope this will help.

Thank you, you helped me a lot. – kostya572 Aug 08 '15 at 22:39 — kostya572, Aug 08 '15 at 22:39

How not to explode sub-delimiter inside delimeter?

1 Answers1