Explode a string into into 3 or 4-word strings

Question

$str =  "Hello fri3nd, you're looking good today!  What a Great day this is!  How     fancy and cool!";
$pieces = explode(" ",$str, 3);

print_r($pieces);

This gives me:

$pieces[0] = 'Hello';
$pieces[1] = 'fri3nd,';
$pieces[2] = 'you\'re looking good today!  What a Great day this is!  How     fancy and cool!';

How can I explode into every 3 or 4 words?

Answer 1

Maybe:?

<?php
$str =  "Hello fri3nd, you're looking good today!  What a Great day this is!  How     fancy and cool!";

$array = array_map(create_function('$a', 'return implode(" ", $a);'), array_chunk(preg_split('/\s+/', $str), 3));
var_dump($array);

Explanation:

• first you split the string at any (combined) whitespace: preg_split
• then 'split' the resulting array: array_chunk
• you then apply implode using array_map on any resulting group of words