PHP explode like function

cwarn23 1 592 Views

Hi and this function I wrote as part of a larger project and acts exactly like the php explode function. Although there a few slight differences between this function and the php explode function it can easily be tweaked to act identical. Also with this function it does not use vectors. Instead it uses an array as the result and in the result array, the combination being split will not appear in any of the strings just like the php function does.

In case your wondering how to use this function simply place in the string to split (param1) and where to split it (param2) then it will return an string array with the results. Hope you enjoy this function and that this page is a good reference...

Ancient Dragon commented: Nice :) +26 
#include <string>
std::string *explode (std::string original, std::string exploder=".") {
	std::string tmp;
	tmp=original;
	int num, loc;
	num=1;
	while (tmp.find(exploder)!=std::string::npos) {
		loc=tmp.find(exploder);
		tmp=tmp.substr(loc+exploder.length());
		num++;
		}
	std::string *result;
	result = new std::string[num];
	num=0;
	tmp=original;
	while (tmp.find(exploder)!=std::string::npos) {
		loc=tmp.find(exploder);
		result[num]=tmp.substr(0,loc);
		tmp=tmp.substr(loc+exploder.length());
		num++;
		}
	result[num]=tmp;
	return result;
}
Member Avatar for Pynolathgeen
Pynolathgeen 19 Light Poster

Really nice, thank you! I'm programming a simple server for a game of mine and I use it to get arguments from headers :3.

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon
Ancient Dragon 5,243 Achieved Level 70

Sorry for being 3 months late with this. Nice function -- a couple minor tweeks to make it run faster, but nice anyway.

Member Avatar for Nick Evan
Nick Evan 4,005 Industrious Poster

Why didn't you use a vector as a return-value? It seems like the logic way to go, since you can easily find out how many strings were found, which is sort of a guessing game now.

Just as a suggestion:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <sstream>

std::vector<std::string> explode (std::string original, unsigned char exploder='.') {
    std::stringstream sstr(original);
    std::vector<std::string> ret_val;
    std::string buffer = "";
    while (std::getline(sstr, buffer,exploder)) 
        ret_val.push_back(buffer);
    
    return ret_val;
}

int main() {
    std::string test = "hai.test.test.testing";
    std::vector<std::string> v = explode(test);

    std::cout << "Found " << v.size() << " words: \n";
    for (size_t i = 0; i != v.size(); ++i) 
        std::cout << v.at(i) << '\n';
}

(untested...)

Edited by Nick Evan because: n/a
Member Avatar for tetron
tetron 22 Junior Poster

Just a minor point:

php explode has a third optional parameter that limits the number of times to split

http://www.tizag.com/phpT/php-string-explode.php
so

std::vector<std::string> php_explode(const std::string &divide,
 const std::string &to_explode, int max_number = -1);

would be closer to the php_function signature but an easy modification to Nick's code

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