preg_split: problems when patterns are repeated

[JoeZar]

I have this kind of string:
xxxx111xxx111xxxx111xxxx222xxx222xxxx

where x may be any character, and the number of chracters between number may change.

I am trying to split the string this way:

preg_split("/111.{0,}222/",$thestring),
and the result is

Array
(
[0] => xxxx
[1] => xxx
)

But I want to get this kind of array

Array
(
[0] => xxxx111xxx111xxxx
[1] => xxx222xxxx
)

How?
take care

[xblue]

it is not completely clear to me what you want, but:

if x can be anything but a number, it is fairly easy:

$str="xxxx111xxx111xxxx111xxxx222xxx222xxxxxx222xxxxx333xx333xxxxx333xxxxxx";
$array=preg_split("/111\D+(?!111)222/", $str);
this would split at 111xxxx222

we can even make it more general if you don't know the specific numbers and just want to split when they change:

$array=preg_split("/(\d+)\D+(?!\1)\d+/", $str);
this would split at 111xxxx222 and 222xxxxx333

if x can be numbers at well, you'd obviously need to know at which numbers you would like to split at, you could use:

$array=preg_split("/111(\D+|(?!111|222)\d+)+222/", $str);
this would split at 111xxxx222 again, even if any of the x was a number.

Hope this helps,
xblue