Monthly Archives: January 2009

Explode() is a widely-used PHP string function that is also one that tends to mystify beginners looking at others’ code. It’s a nifty little function that you may find plenty of uses for once you know how it works.

Explode() takes two arguments, a delimiter and the string you wish to operate on, then returns an array. The function splits a string into multiple pieces at the delimiter, and puts each piece into a numerical array.

Have a list of comma-separated words? (A scenario increasingly common now that “tagging” has become such a popular device.) You can pass a comma-delimited string to explode() with a delimiter of “,” and voila, you have an array containing each of the items.

$string = "lorem, ipsum, dolor";
$delimiter = ", ";
$array = explode($delimiter, $string);

Now you have a single-dimension numerical array with each list item in it. $array[0] would contain “lorem” and $array[1] would be “ipsum” and so on.