Outputting values between deliminators an unknown number of times

dougmcc1

How do you count the number of times a character appears in a string and execute list() that many times?

I want to split() a string like this:
/home/folder/public_html/dir1/dir2...

The backslash is the deliminator and I don't know how many subdirectories are in the path so I don't know how many occurances of the backslash there will be. So I don't know what to set the limit to and I don't know how many variables to put in the limit() function in order to capture each part of the path into a variable.

I was thinking something like this might work:

$bs_count = (# of backslashes in $path);
list($path_dirs[])=split('/',$path,$bs_count);
//output values in $path_dirs array

Not sure how to get $bs_count though and can an array be used in the list function like that?

Thanks.

LordShryku

[man]substr_count[/man] would work for you, but since you're splitting it anyway, why not just explode on /, then use [man]count[/man] to count the number of elements in the array?

dougmcc1

Ok so if I do this:
$split_path=count(explode('/',$path));
echo "split_path: " . $split_path;

or this:
$split_path=explode('/',$path);
$split_count=count($split_path);

I get the number of backslashes in $path.

How do I output each section?

LordShryku

You won't get the number of backslashes really, you'll get the number of elements in the array. Take for instance the following path:
home/folder/public_html/dir1/dir2
Clearly there are only 4 slashes, but once exploded, it will have five elements:

array (
   0 => home
   1 => folder
   2 => public_html
   3 => dir1
   4 => dir2
)

If all you're doing is echoing the elements, you could do this

$split_path=explode('/',$path);
foreach($split_path as $blah) {
   echo $blah."<br />";
}

dougmcc1

Ah ok. I thought I had to do a list to get the output like that. Thanks.

LordShryku

No prob, as always 🙂

You should get familiar with arrays though. As soon as you understand and play with them a bit, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them

dougmcc1

Yeah, one of the many things on my to-do list. 🙂

LordShryku

Well, you know where to find us if ya need help 🙂

dougmcc1

lol well I know where to find you at least. You've answered the majority of my questions on here by far. If this site works out for me I'll be sure to send you something nice 🙂 I really appreciate your help.

LordShryku

I have no life 😃

dougmcc1

Yeah me niether. Hoping to by myself one after all this work. I'll buy you one too if cash permits.

LordShryku

w00t! I can't afford one yet, but I'm saving up for one 😃