php explode: split string into words by using space a delimiter

Question

$str = \"This is a    string\";
$words = explode(\" \", $str);

Works fine, but spaces still go into array:

$words === array (\'This         


        

Answer 1

You can use preg_split() for the first array:

$str   = 'This is a    string';
$words = preg_split('#\s+#', $str);

And preg_match_all() for the $spaces array:

preg_match_all('#\s+#', $str, $m);
$spaces = array_map('strlen', $m[0]);