Explode the string using the integer location

Question

My input is this:

$str = ' 1. Admin, Administrator,3. Visor, Super,4. Team, Super User,5. lastname, employee'

how can I have the following output using array Explode?

 array(
        [0] => Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => Admin [2] => Administrator)
        [1] => Array ( [0] => 3 [1] => Visor [2] => Super)
        [2] => Array ( [0] => 4 [1] => Team [2] => Super User)
        [3] => Array ( [0] => 5 [1] => lastname [2] => employee)
    )

Answer 1

<?php
$str = '1. Admin, Administrator,3. Visor, Super,4. Team, Super User,5. lastname, employee';
$str = str_replace('.', ',', $str);
$arr = explode(',', $str);
$arr = array_chunk ($arr, 3); 
var_export($arr);

Answer 2

Here is another option... This is not a really safe way to get data, but as long as the input is ALWAYS PERFECTLY in this format this will work. The main difference is this one trims the whitespace.

You could also use the other answer and just do str_replace(' ','' before you start

$myString="1. Admin, Administrator,3. Visor, Super,4. Team, Super User,5. lastname, employee";
$myOutput=array();
$myFirstSplit = explode(",",$myString);
foreach($myFirstSplit  as $myKey=> $myVal){
    $myNextSplit=explode('.',$myVal);
    if(count($myNextSplit) > 1){
        $myOutput[$myKey]=array(trim($myNextSplit[0]),trim($myNextSplit[1]));
    }else{
        $myOutput[$myKey-1][]=trim($myNextSplit[0]);
    }
}
var_dump($myOutput);

Answer 3

Another solution which trims the output and is a little bit faster than srain's (nice) solution:

$str = '1. Admin, Administrator,3. Visor, Super,4. Team, Super User,5. lastname, employee';
$tok = strtok($str, ".,");
$output = array();
while ($tok !== false) {
    $output[] = trim($tok);
    $tok = strtok(".,");
}
$output = array_chunk($output, 3);

echo '<pre>';
print_r($output);