mb_split

(PHP 4 >= 4.2.0, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

mb_splitSplit multibyte string using regular expression

Description

mb_split(string $pattern, string $string, int $limit = -1): array|false

Split a multibyte string using regular expression pattern and returns the result as an array.

Parameters

pattern

The regular expression pattern.

string

The string being split.

limit
If optional parameter limit is specified, it will be split in limit elements as maximum.

Return Values

The result as an array, or false on failure.

Notes

Note:

The character encoding specified by mb_regex_encoding() will be used as the character encoding for this function by default.

See Also

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User Contributed Notes 8 notes

up
73
Stas Trefilov, Vertilia
9 years ago
a (simpler) way to extract all characters from a UTF-8 string to array with a single call to a built-in function:

<?php
$str
= 'Ма-
руся'
;
print_r(preg_split('//u', $str, null, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY));
?>

Output:

Array
(
[0] => М
[1] => а
[2] => -
[3] =>

[4] => р
[5] => у
[6] => с
[7] => я
)
up
59
boukeversteegh at gmail dot com
13 years ago
The $pattern argument doesn't use /pattern/ delimiters, unlike other regex functions such as preg_match.

<?php
# Works. No slashes around the /pattern/
print_r( mb_split("\s", "hello world") );
Array (
[
0] => hello
[1] => world
)

# Doesn't work:
print_r( mb_split("/\s/", "hello world") );
Array (
[
0] => hello world
)
?>
up
49
adjwilli at yahoo dot com
16 years ago
I figure most people will want a simple way to break-up a multibyte string into its individual characters. Here's a function I'm using to do that. Change UTF-8 to your chosen encoding method.

<?php
function mbStringToArray ($string) {
$strlen = mb_strlen($string);
while (
$strlen) {
$array[] = mb_substr($string,0,1,"UTF-8");
$string = mb_substr($string,1,$strlen,"UTF-8");
$strlen = mb_strlen($string);
}
return
$array;
}
?>
up
12
gunkan at terra dot es
12 years ago
To split an string like this: "日、に、本、ほん、語、ご" using the "、" delimiter i used:

$v = mb_split('、',"日、に、本、ほん、語、ご");

but didn't work.

The solution was to set this before:

mb_regex_encoding('UTF-8');
mb_internal_encoding("UTF-8");
$v = mb_split('、',"日、に、本、ほん、語、ご");

and now it's working:

Array
(
[0] => 日
[1] => に
[2] => 本
[3] => ほん
[4] => 語
[5] => ご
)
up
22
boukeversteegh at gmail dot com
13 years ago
In addition to Sezer Yalcin's tip.

This function splits a multibyte string into an array of characters. Comparable to str_split().

<?php
function mb_str_split( $string ) {
# Split at all position not after the start: ^
# and not before the end: $
return preg_split('/(?<!^)(?!$)/u', $string );
}

$string = '火车票';
$charlist = mb_str_split( $string );

print_r( $charlist );
?>

# Prints:
Array
(
[0] => 火
[1] => 车
[2] => 票
)
up
2
thflori at gmail
7 years ago
I agree that some people might want a mb_explode('', $string);

this is my solution for it:

<?php

$string
= 'Hallöle';

$array = array_map(function ($i) use ($string) {
return
mb_substr($string, $i, 1);
},
range(0, mb_strlen($string) -1));

expect($array)->toEqual(['H', 'a', 'l', 'l', 'ö', 'l', 'e']);

?>
up
-1
gert dot matern at web dot de
15 years ago
We are talking about Multi Byte ( e.g. UTF-8) strings here, so preg_split will fail for the following string:

'Weiße Rosen sind nicht grün!'

And because I didn't find a regex to simulate a str_split I optimized the first solution from adjwilli a bit:

<?php
$string
= 'Weiße Rosen sind nicht grün!'
$stop = mb_strlen( $string);
$result = array();

for(
$idx = 0; $idx < $stop; $idx++)
{
$result[] = mb_substr( $string, $idx, 1);
}
?>

Here is an example with adjwilli's function:

<?php
mb_internal_encoding
( 'UTF-8');
mb_regex_encoding( 'UTF-8');

function
mbStringToArray
( $string
)
{
$stop = mb_strlen( $string);
$result = array();

for(
$idx = 0; $idx < $stop; $idx++)
{
$result[] = mb_substr( $string, $idx, 1);
}

return
$result;
}

echo
'<pre>', PHP_EOL,
print_r( mbStringToArray( 'Weiße Rosen sind nicht grün!', true)), PHP_EOL,
'</pre>';
?>

Let me know [by personal email], if someone found a regex to simulate a str_split with mb_split.
up
-2
qdb at kukmara dot ru
14 years ago
an other way to str_split multibyte string:
<?php
$s
='әӘөүҗңһ';

//$temp_s=iconv('UTF-8','UTF-16',$s);
$temp_s=mb_convert_encoding($s,'UTF-16','UTF-8');
$temp_a=str_split($temp_s,4);
$temp_a_len=count($temp_a);
for(
$i=0;$i<$temp_a_len;$i++){
//$temp_a[$i]=iconv('UTF-16','UTF-8',$temp_a[$i]);
$temp_a[$i]=mb_convert_encoding($temp_a[$i],'UTF-8','UTF-16');
}

echo(
'<pre>');
print_r($temp_a);
echo(
'</pre>');

//also possible to directly use UTF-16:
define('SLS',mb_convert_encoding('/','UTF-16'));
$temp_s=mb_convert_encoding($s,'UTF-16','UTF-8');
$temp_a=str_split($temp_s,4);
$temp_s=implode(SLS,$temp_a);
$temp_s=mb_convert_encoding($temp_s,'UTF-8','UTF-16');
echo(
$temp_s);
?>
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