Question

I’m using preg_split to make array with some values.
If I have value such as ‘This*Value’, preg_split will split the value to array(‘This’, ‘Value’) because of the * in the value, but I want to split it to where I specified, not to the * from the value.How can escape the value, so symbols of the string not to take effect on the expression ?

Example:

// Cut into {$1:$2}
$str = "{Some:Value*Here}";
$result = preg_split("/[\{(.*)\:(.*)\}]+/", $str, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

// Result:

Array(
    'Some',
    'Value',
    'Here'
);

// Results wanted:

Array(
    'Some',
    'Value*Here'
);

Answer 1

Your current regular expression is a little… wild. Most special characters inside a character class are treated literally, so it can be greatly simplified:

$str = "{Some:Value*Here}";
$result = preg_split("/[{}:]+/", $str, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

And now $result looks like this:

array(2) {
  [0] => string(4) "Some"
  [1] => string(10) "Value*Here"
}