Question

Got code below:

// $partInfo has data filled in
// $partinfo['BusinessPhone'] = '-567-5675678-'
// $billdata *should* have data filled in
// $billdata['BillingInfo']['telephone'] = ''
$telephone = explode('-', $billdata['BillingInfo']['telephone']);
echo "<!-- Telephone: ". print_r($telephone, true)." -->";

produces:

<!-- Telephone: Array
(
    [0] => 
)
-->    

// if billdata billinginfo telephone is blank
if(count($telephone)==0) {
  $telephone = explode('-', $partinfo['BusinessPhone']);
}
echo "<!-- Telephone2: ". print_r($partinfo['BusinessPhone'], true)." -->";

produces:

<!-- Telephone2: -567-5675678- -->

But…

echo "<!-- Telephone3: ". print_r($telephone, true)." -->";

produces:

<!-- Telephone3: Array
(
    [0] => 
)
-->

I suppose that since count($telephone) returns 1 instead of an empty array, that that’s where I’m going wrong. What would be the best way to do this?

Answer 1

From the Return Values section of the PHP documentation for explode:

If delimiter is an empty string (“”), explode() will return FALSE. If delimiter
contains a value that is not contained in string and a negative limit is used, then an
empty array will be returned, otherwise an array containing string will be returned.

So what’s happening is that since $billdata['BillingInfo']['telephone'] = '' contains an empty string, which does not contain the given delimiter, it is returning an array containing the given string.

What you can do instead is:

$telephone = false;
if ($billdata['BillingInfo']['telephone']) {
    $telephone = explode('-', $billdata['BillingInfo']['telephone']);
}

if (!$telephone) {
    $telephone = explode('-', $partinfo['BusinessPhone']);
}