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Answer 1

+3 A:

You could use array_filter() but what you really want to use is PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY instead.

preg_split("/\n/", $row, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY)

Edit: of course it entirely depends on your output. Your pattern should probably be something like this

preg_split("/[\\n\\r \\t]+/", $row, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY)

or this

preg_split("/[\\n\\r \\t]*\\n[\\n\\r \\t]*/", $row, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY)

Josh Davis 2010-02-23 10:41:45

Thanks, the sub array items are now down to 9 items but there are still blanks which is really odd.

digital 2010-02-23 10:45:04

@digital could it be you are on windows and your linebreak isn't `\n`? Try `'/'.PHP_EOL.'/'` for pattern.

Gordon 2010-02-23 11:09:45

or you could split using `/\r|\n/` ? Then both line-endings should work, and PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY will remove anything left

Tom Haigh 2010-02-23 12:35:42

Use var_dump() rather than print_r() to inspect the return. You'll probably see that the elemnents you thought were empty were actually not and they contain spaces or other whitespace characters. I have posted an updated pattern.

Josh Davis 2010-02-23 13:51:28

@Josh Davis, your correct var_dump is showing that there are two blank spaces per line. The code you added splits every word into a seperate item, getting there but regex really isn't my thing, I really appreciate all your help.

digital 2010-02-23 14:49:02

Now that it is clear that your problem is the regexp rather than filtering the results, you should open a new question devoted to that topic, explaining exactly *how* you want to split that text, along with a sample text.

Josh Davis 2010-02-23 16:57:11

Answer 2

A:

I understand you want to do this:

$array = array(null, null, 'Test', null, null);
$output = array_values(array_filter($array));
var_dump($output);

outputs:

array(1) {
  [0]=>
  string(4) "Test"
}

When no callback is passed to array_filter, it will only return values not evaluating to false. Values will be typecasted, so 0 is false, as is '' or null. Keep in mind though that the resulting array from your preg_split might contain control chars. If the resulting array var_dumps not as given above, try to change the pattern in preg_split to '/'.PHP_EOL.'/'.

Alson note that you either want to use the single preg_split with flags (as given in another answer) or array_values plus array_filter plus explode for performance reasons. Using array_values plus array_filter plus preg_split is 2 times slower than either of the other two alternatives, which approximately perform the same.

$str = <<< TXT

Test

Foo

Bar

TXT;

Testing with

$start = microtime(true);
for($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) {
    array_values(array_filter(explode(PHP_EOL, $str)));
}
echo microtime(true) - $start, PHP_EOL; // 0.60249495506287

$start = microtime(true);
for($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) {
    array_values(array_filter(preg_split("/".PHP_EOL."/", $str)));
}
echo microtime(true) - $start, PHP_EOL; // 1.0394451618195

$start = microtime(true);
for($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) {
    preg_split("/".PHP_EOL."/", $str, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
}
echo microtime(true) - $start, PHP_EOL; // 0.60252904891968

Gordon 2010-02-23 10:42:44

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Unset blank array items on the fly

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