Exploding a string into equal portions

$str =  "Hello fri3nd, you're looking good today!  What a Great day this is!  How     fancy and cool!";
$pieces = explode(" ",$str, 3);

print_r($pieces);

so this开发者_高级运维 gives me $pieces[0] = 'Hello',$pieces[1] = 'fri3nd'... and the rest of the string is all shoved into$pieces[3]`. How can I explode into every 3 or 4 words?

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Maybe:?

<?php
$str =  "Hello fri3nd, you're looking good today!  What a Great day this is!  How     fancy and cool!";

$array = array_map(create_function('$a', 'return implode(" ", $a);'), array_chunk(preg_split('/\s+/', $str), 3));
var_dump($array);

Explanation:

• first you split the string at any (combined) whitespace: preg_split
• then 'split' the resulting array: array_chunk
• you then apply implode using array_map on any resulting group of words

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Use the php str_split function:-

$pieces = str_split( $str, 3);