PHP Manual . ... PHP 3 <= 3.0.18, PHP 4 >= 4.0.0) explode -- Split a string by string . array explode ( string separator, string string [, int limit]) . ... If limit is set, the returned array will contain a maximum of limit elements with the last element containing the rest of string . ... pizza = "piece1 piece2 piece3 piece4 piece5 piece6"; $pieces = explode(" ", $pizza); $data = "foo:*:1023:1000::/home/foo:/bin/sh"; list($user,$pass,$uid,$gid,$gecos,$home,$shell) = explode(":",$data); . ...