PHP explode array then loop through values and output to variable - php

Question

The string I am trying to split is $item['category_names'] which for example contains Hair, Fashion, News
I currently have the following code:
$cats = explode(", ", $item['category_names']);
foreach($cats as $cat) {
$categories = "<category>" . $cat . "</category>\n";
}
I want the outcome of $categories to be like the following so I can echo it out later somewhere.
<category>Hair</category>\n
<category>Fashion</category>\n
<category>News</category>\n
Not sure if I am going the right way about this?

Answer 1

In your code you are overwritting the $categories variable in each iteration. The correct code would look like:
$categories = '';
$cats = explode(",", $item['category_names']);
foreach($cats as $cat) {
$cat = trim($cat);
$categories .= "<category>" . $cat . "</category>\n";
}
update: as #Nanne suggested, explode only on ','

Answer 2

Without a for loop
$item['category_names'] = "Hair, Fashion, News";
$categories = "<category>".
implode("</category>\n<category>",
array_map('trim', explode(",", $item['category_names']))) .
"</category>\n";
echo $categories;

Answer 3

PHP explode array by loop
demo: http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/086402c33678fe20c4fbae6f2f5c18e77cb3fbc2
its works for me
<?php
$str = "name:john,hone:12345,ebsite:www.23.com";
$array=explode(",",$str);
if(count($array)!=0)
{
foreach($array as $value)
{
$data=explode(":",$value);
echo $data[0]."=".$data[1];
echo ' ';
}
}
?>

Answer 4

if you use this:
$cats = explode(", ", $item['category_names']);
foreach($cats as $cat) {
$categories = "<category>" . $cat . "</category>\n";
}
the $categories string is overwritten each time, so "hair" and "fasion" are lost..
if you however add a dot before the equal sign in the for loop, like so:
$cats = explode(", ", $item['category_names']);
foreach($cats as $cat) {
$categories .= "<category>" . $cat . "</category>\n";
}
the $catergories string will consist of all three values :)

Answer 5

The error in your code is this:
$categories = "<category>" . $cat . "</category>\n";
You are overwriting $categories at each iteration, it should be:
$categories .= "<category>" . $cat . "</category>\n";
Not sure if I am going the right way about this?
find and replace isn't what explode is for. If you just want to correct the code error - see above.
This is more efficient:
$categories = "<category>" .
str_replace(', ', "</category>\n<category>", $input) .
"</category>\n";
And this also accounts for variable whitespace:
$categories = "<category>" .
preg_replace('#\s*,\s*#', "</category>\n<category>", $input) .
"</category>\n";