Question

Wondering if I could get some advice on tokenizing a string in php since Im relatively new to the language.

I have this:

$full_name = "John Smith"

I want to use a string function that will extract the first name and last name into indices of an array.

$arr[0] = "John"
$arr[1] = "Smith"

However, the function should also be able to handle the situation:

$full_name = "John Roberts-Smith II"
$arr[0] = "John"
$arr[1] = "Roberts-Smith II"

or

$full_name = "John"
$arr[0] = ""
$arr[1] = "John"

any suggestions on where to begin?

Answer 1

Use explode() with the optional limit param:

$full_name = "John Roberts-Smith II"

// Explode at most 2 elements
$arr = explode(' ', $full_name, 2);

// Your values:
$arr[0] = "John"
$arr[1] = "Roberts-Smith II"

Your last case is special though, placing the first name into the second array element. That requires special handling:

// If the name contains no whitespace,
// put the whole thing in the second array element.
if (!strpos($full_name, ' ')) {
   $arr[0] = '';
   $arr[1] = $full_name;
}

So a complete function:

function split_name($name) {
  if (!strpos($name, ' ')) {
    $arr = array();
    $arr[0] = '';
    $arr[1] = $name;
  }
  else $arr = explode(' ', $name, 2);

  return $arr;
}