Explode that doesn't return empty strings?

Question

PHP's explode function returns an array of strings split on some provided substring. It will return empty strings like this:

var_dump(explode('/', '1/2//3/'));
array(5) {
  [0]=>
  string(1) "1"
  [1]=>
  string(1) "2"
  [2]=>
  string(0) ""
  [3]=>
  string(1) "3"
  [4]=>
  string(0) ""
}

Is there some different function or option or anything that would return everything except the empty strings?

var_dump(different_explode('/', '1/2//3/'));
array(3) {
  [0]=>
  string(1) "1"
  [1]=>
  string(1) "2"
  [2]=>
  string(1) "3"
}

Answer 1

function not_empty_string($s) { return $s !== ""; }

array_filter(explode('/', '1/2//3/'), 'not_empty_string');

Answer 2

Try preg_split.

$exploded = preg_split('@/@', '1/2//3/', NULL, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

Answer 3

No.

If you do array_filter(explode('/', '1/2//3/')) you'll get all values that resolve to "false" filtered out (see http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function.array-filter.php).

Answer 4

Write a wrapper function to strip them

function MyExplode($sep, $str)
{
    $arr = explode($sep, $str);
    foreach($arr as $item)
        if(item != "")
            $out[] = $item;
    return $out;
}

Answer 5

I usually wrap it in a call to array_filter, e.g.

var_dump(array_filter(explode('/', '1/2//3/'))
=>
array(3) {
  [0]=>
  string(1) "1"
  [1]=>
  string(1) "2"
  [3]=>
  string(1) "3"
}

Be aware, of course, that array keys are maintained; if you don't want this behaviour, remember to add an outer wrapper call to array_values().

Answer 6

PHP's split function is similar to the explode function, except that it allows you to enter a regex pattern as the delimiter. Something to the effect of:

$exploded_arr = split('/\/+/', '1/2//3/');

Answer 7

I haven't tested the other suggestions here, but this works:

function different_explode($mypattern,$mystring){
    $array1 = explode($mypattern,$mystring);
    $retArray = Array();
    foreach($array1 as $myval){
     if($myval != ''){
      array_push($retArray,$myval);
     }
    }
    return $retArray;
}

Answer 8

Use this function to filter the output of the explode function

  function filter_empty(&$arrayvar) {
        $newarray = array();
        foreach ($arrayvar as $k => $value)
            if ($value !== "")
                $newarray[$k] = $value;

        $arrayvar = $newarray;
    }

Answer 9

Just for variety:

array_diff(explode('/', '1/2//3/'), array(''))

This also works, but does mess up the array indexes unlike preg_split. Some people might like it better than having to declare a callback function to use array_filter.

Answer 10

Regular expression solutions tend to be much slower than basic text replacement, so i'd replace double seperators with single seperators, trim the string of any whitespace and then use explode:

// assuming $source = '1/2//3/';
$source = str_replace('//', '/', $source);
$source = trim($source);
$parts = explode('/', $source);