note 21942 modified in split by torben

[Ed. note: Close. The pipe *is* an operator in PHP, but the reason this fails is because it's also an operator in the regex syntax. The distinction here is important since a PHP operator inside a string is just a character.] The reason your code: $line = "12|3|Fred"; list ($msgid, $msgref, $msgtopic)=split('|', $line); didn't work is because the "|" symbol is an operator in PHP. If you want to use the pipe symbol as a delimiter you must excape it with a back slash, "\|". You code should look like this: $line = "12|3|Fred"; list ($msgid, $msgref, $msgtopic)=split('\|', $line); --was-- The reason your code: $line = "12|3|Fred"; list ($msgid, $msgref, $msgtopic)=split('|', $line); didn't work is because the "|" symbol is an operator in PHP. If you want to use the pipe symbol as a delimiter you must excape it with a back slash, "\|". You code should look like this: $line = "12|3|Fred"; list ($msgid, $msgref, $msgtopic)=split('\|', $line); http://www.php.net/manual/en/split.php