What is the best way to split a string into an array of Unicode characters in PHP?

Question

In PHP, what is the best way to split a string into an array of Unicode characters? If the input is not necessarily UTF-8?

I want to know whether the set of Unicode

Answer 1

function str_split_unicode($str, $l = 0) {
    if ($l > 0) {
        $ret = array();
        $len = mb_strlen($str, "UTF-8");
        for ($i = 0; $i < $len; $i += $l) {
            $ret[] = mb_substr($str, $i, $l, "UTF-8");
        }
        return $ret;
    }
    return preg_split("//u", $str, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
}
var_dump(str_split_unicode("لأآأئؤة"));

output:

array (size=7)
  0 => string 'ل' (length=2)
  1 => string 'أ' (length=2)
  2 => string 'آ' (length=2)
  3 => string 'أ' (length=2)
  4 => string 'ئ' (length=2)
  5 => string 'ؤ' (length=2)
  6 => string 'ة' (length=2)

for more information : http://php.net/manual/en/function.str-split.php