Exploding Song title - php

Question

I am having some issues exploding this title Song Artist – Song Name I am using the following code and having not very much luck.
$title2 = $html2->find('header.section-header h2',0);
$links = $title2->plaintext;
$str = explode ("–", $links);
$artist = preg_replace('#\[[a-zA-Z].*\]#','',$str[0]);
$song = preg_replace('#\[[a-zA-Z].*\]#','',$str[1]);
print '<div class="song"> <div class="options"> <a class="play" href="'.$url.'" data-url="'.$url.'" data-title="'.$artist.'"> </a> <a class="download" href="'.$url.'"> </a> </div> <div class="info"> <a class="direct" href="'.$url.'"> <div class="artist">'.$artist.'</div> <div class="title">A Rainy Night In Harlem (Freestyle)</div> </a> </div> </div>';
It should look like this when I display.
But instead it returns something that looks like this.

Answer 1

I found something that might interest you:
Add echo htmlentities($title)."<br>"; under $title2=$title->plaintext;, IN YOUR ORIGINAL code. Like this
$title2 = $title->plaintext;
echo htmlentities($title)."<br>";
Gives me: (for example:)
<h2 itemprop="name">Chris Brown – You Make Me This Way (I Got You) (LQ)</h2>
No - but a –
That is why the explode didn't work. You might get away with exploding on –
Checked it over here, and it seems to work.
Sorry for all the edits, I had a hard time displaying – :-)

Answer 2

You may use trim to remove any unwanted whitespaces:
<?php
$title2 = $html2->find('header.section-header h2',0);
$links = $title2->plaintext;
$str = explode ("–", $links);
$artist = trim($str[0]);
$song = trim($str[1]);
?>
<div class="song">
<div class="options">
<a class="play" href="" data-url="" data-title=""></a>
<a class="download" href=""></a>
</div>
<div class="info">
<a class="direct" href="">
<div class="artist"><?php echo $artist;?></div>
<div class="title"><?php echo $song;?></div>
</a>
</div>
</div>