How can I split a string in PHP at the nth occurrence of a needle?

Question

There must be a fast and efficient way to split a (text) string at the "nth" occurrence of a needle, but I cannot find it. There is a fairly full set of functions

Answer 1

If your needle will always be one character, use Galled's answer. It's going to be faster by quite a bit. If your $needle is a string, try this. It seems to work fine.

function splitn($string, $needle, $offset)
{
    $newString = $string;
    $totalPos = 0;
    $length = strlen($needle);
    for($i = 0; $i < $offset; $i++)
    {
        $pos = strpos($newString, $needle);

        // If you run out of string before you find all your needles
        if($pos === false)
            return false;
        $newString = substr($newString, $pos + $length);
        $totalPos += $pos + $length;
    }
    return array(substr($string, 0, $totalPos-$length), substr($string, $totalPos));
}