PHP functions question

Question

I'm fairly new to PHP functions I really dont know what the bottom functions do, can some one give an explanation or working example explaining the functions below. Thanks.

PHP functions.

function mbStringToArray ($str) {
 if (empty($str)) return false;
 $len = mb_strlen($str);
 $array = array();
 for ($i = 0; $i < $len; $i++) {
 $array[] = mb_substr($str, $i, 1);
 }
 return $array;
}
function mb_chunk_split($str, $len, $glue) {
 if (empty($str)) return false;
 $array = mbStringToArray ($str);
 $n = 0;
 $new = '';
 foreach ($array as $char) {
 if ($n < $len) $new .= $char;
 elseif ($n == $len) {
 $new .= $glue . $char;
 $n = 0;
 }
 $n++;
 }
 return $new;
}

• Pekka: I assume they form a multi-byte version of chunk_split. php.net/chunk_split multi-byte means they can deal with UTF-8 strings in which a character can consist of more than one byte

Answer 1

The first function takes a multibyte string and converts it into an array of characters, returning the array.

The second function takes a multibyte string and inserts the $glue string every $len characters.

• jrn.ak: This could be used to insert soft-wraps into long strings that don't contain natural word-wrap locations.

Answer 2

function mbStringToArray ($str) { // $str is a function argument
 if (empty($str)) return false; // empty() checks if the argument is not equal to NULL (but does exist)
 $len = mb_strlen($str); // returns the length of a multibyte string (ie UTF-8)
 $array = array(); // init of an array
 for ($i = 0; $i < $len; $i++) { // self explanatory
 $array[] = mb_substr($str, $i, 1); // mb_substr() substitutes from $str one char for each pass
 }
 return $array; // returns the result as an array
}

That should help you to understand the second function