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Exploding and Imploding

Exploding and Imploding

by David Stanley

Exploding and imploding refers to changing between a string and an array. You can take a specific string and create an array out of the words or vice versa.

Using the explode command will create an array from a string.

Here is a sample string to start things off :

<?php
$pantry = "tomatoes,oranges,bananas,potatoes,bread,apples";
?>

Now you have to figure out a common seperator element. In this case it is a comma seperating each word. In a normal sentence, it could be specifed as a space.

Time to explode this string into an array...

<?php
$pantry = "tomatoes,oranges,bananas,potatoes,bread,apples";
$pantry_food = explode(",",$pantry);
?>

The array called $pantry_food now contains 6 elements. The array keys range from 0 to 5 and contains the values of tomatoes to apples. Doing a quick array print out :

<?php
$count_total = count($pantry_food);
for ($counter=0; $counter<$count_total; $counter++){
$line = each ($pantry_food);
echo "$line[key] $line[value] <br />";
?>

results as :

0 tomatoes
1 oranges
2 bananas
3 potatoes
4 bread
5 apples

So exploding breaks the data apart, imploding brings the data together. The implode command will take the data from an array and assemble it into a single string.

We will use the newly created array from above and implode it into a new string.

<?php
$new_pantry = implode(" ",$pantry_food);
?>

Imploding uses a separator element as well. In this case, it adds the separator between each of the array elements when it creates the new string. The above example is using a space this time.

The new string :

<?php
echo "$new_pantry";
?>

Has the value of :

tomatoes oranges bananas potatoes bread apples

-----------------
Article by David Stanley. Visit his site http://www.htmlite.com. Reprinted with permission.

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