How can I split a delimited string into an array in PHP?

Question

I need to split my string input into an array at the commas.

How can I go about accomplishing this?

Input:

9,admin@example.com,8

Answer 1

explode has some very big problems in real life usage:

count(explode(',', null)); // 1 !! 
explode(',', null); // [""] not an empty array, but an array with one empty string!
explode(',', ""); // [""]
explode(',', "1,"); // ["1",""] ending commas are also unsupported, kinda like IE8

this is why i prefer preg_split

preg_split('@,@', $string, NULL, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY)

the entire boilerplate:

/** @brief wrapper for explode
 * @param string|int|array $val string will explode. '' return []. int return string in array (1 returns ['1']). array return itself. for other types - see $as_is
 * @param bool $as_is false (default): bool/null return []. true: bool/null return itself.
 * @param string $delimiter default ','
 * @return array|mixed
 */
public static function explode($val, $as_is = false, $delimiter = ',')
{
    // using preg_split (instead of explode) because it is the best way to handle ending comma and avoid empty string converted to ['']
    return (is_string($val) || is_int($val)) ?
        preg_split('@' . preg_quote($delimiter, '@') . '@', $val, NULL, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY)
        :
        ($as_is ? $val : (is_array($val) ? $val : []));
}