I'm new to regex, and I want to split a string on a delimiter, while keeping that delimiter at the beginning of each array element. I tried it unsuccessfully, and came up with:
$str = 'LOTS OF STUFF AND SOME MORE STUFF AND SOME OTHER STUFF';
$matches = preg_split('/(\ AND)/', $str, null, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
This puts the delimiter as its own element :
[0]=>"LOTS OF STUFF"
[1]=>" AND"
[2]=>" SOME MORE STUFF"
[3]=>" AND"
[4]=>" SOME OTHER STUFF"
But I wanted to keep the delimiter at the beginning of the element:
[0]=>"LOTS OF STUFF"
[1]=>" AND SOME MORE STUFF"
[2]=>" AND SOME OTHER STUFF"
I thought maybe I could do it trying to use a look-behind, but then I was losing the delimiter again:
$matches = preg_split('/(?<=\s)AND/', $str, null, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
[0]=>"LOTS OF STUFF"
[1]=>" SOME MORE STUFF"
[2]=>" SOME OTHER STUFF"
Would love some help, thanks!!
Use lookahead assertion ((?=)
) to split at the string positions followed by AND
:
$str = 'LOTS OF STUFF AND SOME MORE STUFF AND SOME OTHER STUFF';
$matches = preg_split('/ (?=AND)/', $str);
var_dump($matches);
/*
array(3) {
[0]=>
string(13) "LOTS OF STUFF"
[1]=>
string(19) "AND SOME MORE STUFF"
[2]=>
string(20) "AND SOME OTHER STUFF"
}
*/
Demo. This code removes whitespace preceding AND
; if it's not what you want, just get rid off the whitespace in the regex.