PHP：除了并行结构之外，用逗号分隔一个句子

Question

I would like to split a setnence into parts along commas, except if it contains a paralllel structure.

For example, given these sentences (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/623/01/):

Mary likes to hike, to swim, and to ride a bicycle.

Mary likes to hike, swim, and ride a bicycle.

I would split these along the first comma only so I would get:

sentence_array ( "Mary likes to hike", "swim, and ride a bicycle")

Perhaps with a forward looking regex, checking for at least 2-3 white spaces not surrounded by a comma?

Answer 1

Maybe something like this could work:

<?php

$str = "Mary likes to hike, to swim, and to ride a bicycle, also, something more at the end.";
var_dump($str);

$str = preg_replace('/((\s\w*){3,},)/', '\1*', $str);
$str = explode('*', $str);

var_dump($str);
?>

It has to be worked on tho like using something more unique than a mere *