Question

I am retrieving some data from a table in mysql. The values are stored with a | separater
Example:
test 1|test 2|test 4 and so on..
Everything works great except when there are blank entries in the column. I am using the following code.

$groups = explode('|', $row['groups']);
if(count($groups) >0) 
{
   echo 'There are values';

}else{ 
   echo 'No values';
} 

The problem I have is this returns ‘There are values’ even if the column is empty.
Any help would be great appreciated.

Answer 1

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

<?php
$g = "";
$e = explode('|',$g, -1) ;
if ($e) print "yes 1"; else print "Non 1";

$g = "";
$e = explode('|',$g, 1) ;
if ($e) print "yes 2"; else print "Non 2";

?>

Non 1
yes 2

The issue is that your returned array contains a single element that is empty string.