split paragraphs in array php - php

Question

I have an array of this form:
$steps = array (0=> "the sentence one. the sentence two. the sentence three.",
1=> "the sentence for. the sentence 5");
and I want to have an array $steps like this:
$steps = array (0 => "the sentence one.",
1 => "the sentence two.",
.
.
4 =>"the sentence for."
);
I tried to use explode and implode but I did not succeed.

Answer 1

You can split your strings in your existing array using (?<=\.\s)(?=\w) regex and then iterate over all the matches using foreach loop and keep adding all the splitted strings in an array. Check this PHP code,
$steps = array (0=> "the sentence one. the sentence two. the sentence three.",
1=> "the sentence for. the sentence 5");
$arr = array();
foreach ($steps as $s) {
$mat = preg_split('/(?<=\.\s)(?=\w)/', $s);
foreach($mat as $m) {
array_push($arr,$m);
}
}
print_r($arr);
Prints,
Array
(
[0] => the sentence one.
[1] => the sentence two.
[2] => the sentence three.
[3] => the sentence for.
[4] => the sentence 5
)
This assumes that a new sentence starts after a dot . is followed by a space by looking at your current sample data. In case you have more complicated sample data containing dots in various forms, please post your such samples and if need be, my solution can be updated to accommodate them as well.

Answer 2

Let me know if this works for you preg_split("/\. (?=[A-Z])/", join(" ", $steps));
Your target array :
$steps = array (
0 => "The sentence one. The sentence two. The sentence three.",
1 => "The sentence for. The sentence 5"
);
$steps_unified = preg_split("/\. (?=[A-Z])/", join(" ", $steps));
print_r ($steps_unified);
You will get:
Array (
[0] => The sentence one
[1] => The sentence two
[2] => The sentence three
[3] => The sentence for
[4] => The sentence 5
)
If we use proper grammar, lines should end with a '.' and begin with a space and a Capital latter word.