Question

Inorder to split the string i have used the following code.

$string = "-sev*yes-sev1*no-sev2*yes";
split('[-*]', $string).

As split is deprecated, can you please suggest an alternative to split the string into an array. I have tried with explode, but it is not serving my purpose.
The output should look like,

Array
(
    [0] => sev
    [1] => yes
    [2] =>  sev1
    [3] =>  no
    [4] =>  sev2
    [5] =>  yes
)

Thank u all for ur responses..I tried preg_split('[-*]', $string). It has split has the string character wise. I have modified it to preg_split('/[-*]/', $string). It is working well. It would be great if you can explain me the difference.

Answer 1

You can use preg_split as:

$string = "-sev*yes-sev1*no-sev2*yes";
$array = preg_split('/-|\*/', $string,-1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

or

$array = preg_split('/-|\*/', $string);

alternatively you can also use strtok:

$tok = strtok($string, "-*");
$array = array();
while ($tok !== false) {
    $array[] = $tok;
    $tok = strtok("-*");
}

EDIT:

In

 preg_split('[-*]', $string);

the [ ] are treated as delimiters and not as char class hence you are using the regex -* for splitting which means zero or more hyphens.

but in

preg_split('/[-*]/', $string);

you are using the regex [-*] which is the char class to match either * or a -