`explode` delimiter not found behavior

Question

I want explode to return an empty array if the delimiter is not found.

Currently, I do something like this to get the explode behavior I want:

            if (strpos($line, ' ') === false) {
                $entries = [];
            } else {
                $entries = explode(' ', $line);
            }

There must be a more concise way of getting this behavior without having to use preg_split. preg_split has its own behavior that is also undesirable, such as including the delimiter in the resultant array entries.

is there a more concise way of getting the behavior i detailed in the question? — tau, Jan 04 '18 at 20:58
How / where is the data generated? This sounds like something that should be handled where the data is validated. — jeroen, Jan 04 '18 at 21:02

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 04 '18 at 21:37

So, you have a string of space delimited data, e.g. 'foo bar'? Your rule is if there's no delimiter, meaning if the string is either a single value ('foo') or an empty string (''), then you want an empty array; otherwise you want the split delimited data?

$entries = explode(' ', $line);
if (count($entries) < 2) {
    $entries = [];
}

There isn't really a sane way to make this specific condition shorter, but this removes the redundant inspection of the string and clearly states what the code is trying to do.

`explode` delimiter not found behavior

1 Answers1