Question

I needed to split a string by different delimiters. So i found & used this code:

function explodeX($delimiters,$string)
{
    $return_array = Array($string);
    $d_count = 0;
    while (isset($delimiters[$d_count]))
    {
        $new_return_array = Array();
        foreach($return_array as $el_to_split)
        {
            $put_in_new_return_array = explode($delimiters[$d_count],$el_to_split);
            foreach($put_in_new_return_array as $substr)
            {
                $new_return_array[] = $substr;
            }
        }
        $return_array = $new_return_array;
        $d_count++;
    }
    return $return_array;
} 

It worked fine, but now, I need to reverse it and find, which delimeter it actually used.
I used this kind of line:

$val=explodeX(array("+","-","*","/"), $input);

Now, I need to return the right delimiter back in.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

All the delimeters you set in $delimiters are used, as shown in this line:

while (isset($delimiters[$d_count]))

$d_count is incremented at the bottom of the loop, $d_count++, and $return_array is returned after it loops through all your delimiters, seperating as much from $string as you have specified.

To put the correct delimiter back in the position it was in before, you can’t, unless you modify what information you return in $return_array. Something like this is what you’re looking for:

$return_array[] = $new_return_array;
$delim = $delimiters[$d_count];
$return_array['delim'] = new Array();
$return_array['delim'][$delim][] = $new_return_array;
$d_count++;

This will store the words seperated by each delimiter in a child array under the delim index of your returned result. Then all you would need to do to implode them back is something like this:

$string2 = '';
foreach ( $return_array as $delim => $word )
{
    // not sure how to reverse your function at this moment, will get back with this part...
}