Question

I need a function or some regex to split up spaces in a string but to treat an HTML tag as a word.

$str = 'one two <a href="">three</a> four';
$x = explode(" ", $str);
print_r($x);

/* Returns:
  Array
(
    [0] => one
    [1] => two
    [2] => <a
    [3] => href="">three</a>
    [4] => four
)

Looking for way to return:

Array
(
    [0] => one
    [1] => two
    [2] => <a href="">three</a>
    [3] => four
)

*/

Any ideas? Thanks

Answer 1

This is a bit simpler then the above, haven’t fully tested but give it a shot.

$str = 'one two <a href="">three</a> four';

if(preg_match_all('%(<[^<]+.*?>|[^\s]+)%', $str, $matches)) {
    array_shift($matches);
    print_r($matches);
}

Here is another version that I tested for about 5 minutes that works a bit better:

$str = 'one two <a href="omfg hi I have spaces"> three</a> four <script type="javascript"> var a = "hello"; </script><random tag>la la la la<nested>hello?</nested></random tag>';

if(preg_match_all('%(<[^<]+.*?>|[^\s]+)%', preg_replace('%([\s]\<|\>[\s])%', '$1', $str), $matches)) {
    array_shift($matches);
    echo '<pre>';
    print_r($matches);
    echo '</pre>';
}