Question

The following code splits a string and selects all of the alphanumeric words containing minimum 3 letters. However instead of getting all the words from the string, I want to get only first 3 valid words, but the problem is with the loop. How can I stop the loop as soon as 3 valid words are found from the string.

PS. If there is an alternative approach to the same thing, please suggest.
Thanks.

$string = "test test TEST test- -test _test blsdk.bldf,las";

$arr = preg_split('/[,\ \.;]/', $string);
$keywords = array_unique($arr);
foreach ($keywords as $keyword){
            if ((preg_match("/^[a-z0-9]/", $keyword) ) && (strlen($keyword) > 3)){
                    echo $keyword;
                    echo "<br />";
            }
        }

Answer 1

add a variable which counts up when a matching keyword is found. when counter reaches maximum then break the foreach loop

$string = "test test TEST test- -test _test blsdk.bldf,las";

$arr = preg_split('/[,\ \.;]/', $string);
$keywords = array_unique($arr);
$i=0;
foreach ($keywords as $keyword){
            if ((preg_match("/^[a-z0-9]/", $keyword) ) && (strlen($keyword) > 3)){
                    echo $keyword;
                    echo "<br />";
                    $i++;
                    if ($i==3) break;
            }
        }