preg_split – split by white space and by chosen character but keep the character in array

So i have this problem, i want to split a string by a pattern that contains white space( ) and comma (,). I managed to split my string by that pattern but the problem is that i want to keep that comma in array. Here is my string:

$string = "It's just me, myself, i and an empty glass of wine. Age = 21";

Here is how i split it:

$split = preg_split('/[s,]+/', $string, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

Here is the array that i’m getting in this example(as you can see that comma disappears)

This is the one that i have now:

Array
(
    [0] => It's
    [1] => just
    [2] => me
    [3] => myself
    [4] => i
    [5] => and
    [6] => an
    [7] => empty
    [8] => glass
    [9] => of
    [10] => wine.
    [11] => Age
    [12] => =
    [13] => 21
)

This is the one that i want:

Array
(
    [0] => It's
    [1] => just
    [2] => me
    [3] => ,
    [4] => myself
    [5] => ,
    [6] => i
    [7] => and
    [8] => an
    [9] => empty
    [10] => glass
    [11] => of
    [12] => wine.
    [13] => Age
    [14] => =
    [15] => 21
)

If there is a space before that comma and that comma is not in that pattern i get it into that array that’s generated by preg_split but the problem is that i want it to get that comma with or without space before it.

Is there a way to achieve this?

Thank you! 😀

Answer

the problem is that i want to keep that comma in array

Then just use the flag PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE

PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE

If this flag is set, parenthesized expression in the delimiter pattern will be captured and returned as well.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.preg-split.php

So you will split it like this

$split = preg_split('/(,)s|s/', $string, null, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

You can test it here

https://3v4l.org/Eq8uS

For the Limit argument null is more appropriate then -1 because we just want to skip to the flag argument. It’s more clean when you read it because null means nothing where -1 may have some important value (in this case it doesn’t) but it just makes it clearer for someone that doesn’t know preg_split as well that we are just ignoring that argument.