Parse PHP String Based On Number of Characters

Question

Hello all,

I'm starting to work on a small script that takes a string, counts the number of characters, then, based on the number of characters, splits/breaks the string apart and sends/emails 110 characters at a time.

What would be the proper logic/PHP to use to:

1) Count the number of characters in the string
2) Preface each message with (1/3) (2/3) (3/3), etc...
3) And only send 110 characters at a time.

I know I'd probably have to use strlen to count the characters, and some type of loop to loop through, but I'm not quite sure how to go about it.

Thanks!

Answer 1

use str_split() and iterate over the resulting array.

Answer 2

From the top of my head, should work as is, but doesn't have to. Logic is ok though.

foreach ($messages as $msg) {

  $len = strlen($msg);

  if ($len > 110) {
    $parts = ceil($len / 100);
    for ($i = 1; $i <= $parts; $i++) {
      $part = $i . '/' . $parts . ' ' . substr($msg, 0, 110);
      $msg = substr($msg, 109);
      your_sending_func($part);
    }

  } else {
    your_sending_func($msg);
  }

}

Answer 3

You could use str_split, if you're not concerned with where you break the strings.

Else, if you are concerned with this (and want to, say, split only on a whitespace), you could do something like:

// $str is the string you want to chop up.
$split = preg_split('/(.{0,110})\s/',
                    $str,
                    0,
                    PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE | PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

With this array you could then simply do:

$count = count($split);
foreach ($split as $key => $message) {
    $part = sprintf("(%d/%d) %s", $key+1, $count, $message);
    // $part is now one of your messages;
    // do what you wish with it here.
}