preg_split() Magic

<?php

$sentence = 'hypertext language, programming';

$keywords = preg_split('/[\s,]+/', $sentence);
// ['hypertext', 'language', 'programming']

$separators = preg_split('/([\s,]+)/', $sentence, flags: PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
// ['hypertext', ' ', 'language', ', ', 'programming']

$separator2s = preg_split('/([\s,])([\s]*)/', $sentence, flags: PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
// ['hypertext', ' ', '', 'language', ',', ' ', 'programming']

$words = explode(' ', $sentence);
// ['hypertext', 'language,', 'programming']
// comma is still collected

?>

Most of the time, explode() is sufficient to split a string with a static separator. Otherwise, there is preg_split().

preg_split() uses a regex to split the string. This allows for multiple and complex separators to be used in the same call.

preg_split() accepts empty regex, to split strings with nothing: it turns a string into an array. It might require the PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY option, to avoid trailing elements.

preg_split() has a PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE option, to collect the separators along the parsing. Since it might be complex, it is important to get them for further processing.

preg_split(), just like explode(), has a limit parameter, to stop processing the string, once a number of string has been found. This is perfect to prevent PHP from processing too much, as long as a number of expected strings can be predicted.

explode() is faster preg_split(), so use it for the simple and most common cases.

See Also

• preg_split (PHP manual)

• explode (PHP manual)

• strtok (PHP manual)

• preg_split magic [Try me]

PHP Error Messages

• Argument #1 must not be empty

PHP Features

• preg_split

• explode

• regex

Last updated: 14 July 2026