function myFunctionName() {
//Function data
}

Now if you have a look at the code above, where it says myFunctionName(), you can also add some parameters in between the ( ) brackets in case you want some special parameters to be used in the function.

Now we will take a short look at writing a simple function. In the following example, we will take a look at using a special parameter to write out a special string.

function writeString($string) {
echo $string;
}

Now, to call this function, you just use the very simple code:

writeString(“Hello, world!”);

Now that would return the following:

Hello, world!

Of course, you could also set a variable earlier on in the script and then just put $variable-name between the two brackets.

Of course, you could always add a more complicated things in the function, for example use other functions to reduce the amount of coding you have to do later on. Alternitavely, just jump on over to PEAR PHP and you’ll find loads of pre-written functions and classes so you don’t have to.

If you think I have missed anything out, just drop me a comment,

Thanks for reading,

Matt

DEFINE (‘DB_USER’, ‘username’);
DEFINE (‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password’);
DEFINE (‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);
DEFINE (‘DB_NAME’, ‘database name’);
$dbc = @mysql_connect (DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD) OR die (‘Could not connect to MySQL: ‘ . mysql_error());
@mysql_select_db (DB_NAME) OR die(‘Could not select the database: ‘ . mysql_error() );

explode( string seperator, string str );

And what the explode() function will do is get the string str as an array and then it will return each “word” separated by the first parameter as it’s own array element.

The example below shows how this works:

$str = “hello this is a string”;
$words = explode(” “, $str);
print_r($words);

The explode in this example uses a space as a string separator. The variable $words is assigned to the explode and the print_r echoes out the array $words. The example above will return:

Array ( [0] => hello [1] => this [2] => is [3] => a [4] => string )

You can also use explode() to select specific words, for example, highlight words that have been used in a search query. To this, you basically do the same thing but you use a foreach loop to return each word separately and check it against an if statement.

$sentence = “Hello-this-is-a-sentence”;
$words = explode(“-”, $sentence);

foreach($words as $word){
if($word == $_GET['search_term']){
echo “$word“;
}
else
{
echo “$word “;
}
}

That will pretty much check any word that comes from the url which equals “search_term” and highlight it in red if there is a match.

For example, if you have file.php?search_term=Hello-this-is-foo, the separator is the “-” which is set earlier on in the explode and then it will check the string: “Hello-this-is-foo” against the sentence “Hello-this-is-a-sentence” and any words that match will be highlighted.

I hope this has helped your understanding of the explode().

If you have any questions, just comment,

Thanks for reading,

Matt