Question

I’m trying to preg_split() a string of tags delimited by commas, double quotes, or spaces.

This is the code I have so far. The idea is to make it as easy as possible for the user to input tags without the use of a javascript solution (which I may go to later).

$tagfield = 'Tag Tag2, Tag3 "Tag" "A Tag"';

$tags = preg_split('/[^(.)^a-zA-Z0-9]+/', $tagfield, NULL, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

The output I’m getting is:

array (
    0 => 'Tag',
    1 => 'Tag2',
    2 => 'Tag3',
    3 => 'Tag',
    4 => 'A',
    5 => 'Tag',
)

My desired output would be:

array (
    0 => 'Tag',
    1 => 'Tag2',
    2 => 'Tag3',
    3 => 'Tag',
    4 => 'A Tag',
)

I’m not quite sure how I should grab a two-word tag.

Answer 1

Why not a preg_match_all?

preg_match_all('/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)|(?:"([a-zA-Z0-9 ]+)")/i', 'Tag Tag2, Tag3 "Tag" "A Tag"', $result);

Edit:

I accept the unelegantless part of the solution, however it does not return the double quotes. Here is the code I mentioned before. Please, paste the more elegant one you find 🙂

<?php
preg_match_all('/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)|(?:"([a-zA-Z0-9 ]+)")/i', 'Tag Tag2, Tag3 "Tag" "A Tag"', $result);
$result=array_filter(array_map('array_filter', $result));
print_r(array_merge($result[1], $result[2]));
?>

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => Tag
    [1] => Tag2
    [2] => Tag3
    [3] => Tag
    [4] => A Tag
)