phpregexpreg-split

Split string on punctuation symbols without losing the symbols

I'm trying to split a string using preg_split, but I want to include the delimiters, and I don't want to capture an empty string. How would I do this?

$inputX = "hello1.hello2.";
$tempInput = preg_split( "~(\?|\.|!|\,)~", $inputX); //split the input at .!?,
print_r($tempInput)

Result: 

Array ( [0] => hello1 [1] => hello2 [2] => )

Need Result: 

Array ( [0] => hello1. [1] => hello2.
Solution

  • Use this regex:

    (?<=[.!?])(?!$|[.!?])

    Regex live here.

    Explaining:

    (?<=          # looks for positions after
    [.!?]     # one of these three characters
)             #
(?!           # but not
    $         # at the end
    |         # OR
    [.!?]     # before one of these three characters
 )            #

    Hope it helps.