function BetterExplode($delimiter, $data,  $quotechar="\" '", $bwlLeaveQuotesInPlace=false)
{
//Judas Gutenberg November 28 2007
//moves through data character by character breaking on 
//delimiters so quoted characters are not mistaken as delimiters
//$quotechar can be a space-delimited series of acceptable quotes, 
//though they cannot be mixed when 
//quoting a particular string
//think of it as a more complicated version of explode

	//handle quotes being passed in as ascii values:
	$arrQuotes=explode(" ", $quotechar);
	$quotechar="";
	foreach($arrQuotes as $thisquote)
	{
		if(is_numeric($thisquote))
		{
			$quotechar.=chr($thisquote) . " ";
		}
		else
		{
			$quotechar.=$thisquote. " ";
		}
	}
	$quotechar=RemoveEndCharactersIfMatch($quotechar, " ");
	//echo "-" . $quotechar . "-";
	if (contains($delimiter, "."))
	{
		$delimiter=multichrhandle($delimiter);
		//hacky and imprecise i know - but for multiple 
		//character delimeters this is what i do!
		//and it hardly matters in most cases, where the 
		//second character is chr(10)
		for($i=0; $i<strlen($data); $i++)
		{
			$chr=substr($delimiter, $i, 1);
			if ($i==0)
			{
				$delimiter=$chr;
			}
			else
			{
				//throw away all instances of other 
				//characters in delimiters in $data - 
				//could break things!
				$data=str_replace($chr, "", $data);
			}
		}
	}
	else if (is_numeric($delimiter))
	{
		$delimiter=chr($delimiter);
	}
	$arrOut=Array();
	if($quotechar=="")
	{
		$bwlQuoteOn=true;
	}
	else
	{
		$bwlQuoteOn=false;
	}
	$intArrCursor=0;
	$chrKnownQuote="";
	$chrQuoteToBeEscaping="";
	for($i=0; $i<strlen($data); $i++)
	{
		$chr=substr($data, $i, 1);
		if($i+1<strlen($data))
		{
			$chrNext=substr($data, $i+1, 1);
		}
		else
		{
			$chrNext="";
		}
		if( $chr==$delimiter    
			&&  (!$bwlQuoteOn  || $quotechar=="")  )
		{
			$arrOut[$intArrCursor]=$thisvar;
			$intArrCursor++;
			$thisvar="";
		}
		else if ((($chrKnownQuote=="" 
			&& inList($quotechar, $chr) 
			|| $chrKnownQuote==$chr)) && !$bwlQuoteOn)
		{
			$bwlQuoteOn=true;
			$chrKnownQuote=$chr;
			if($bwlLeaveQuotesInPlace)
			{
				$thisvar.=$chr;
			}
		}
		else if ($bwlQuoteOn && 
			(($chrKnownQuote=="" 
			&& inList($quotechar, $chr) 
		|| $chrKnownQuote==$chr)))
		{
			//handle internally-escaped quotes, that is, a known 
			//quote escaping one immediately following in data
			if($chrQuoteToBeEscaping==$chr)
			{
				$chrQuoteToBeEscaping="";
				$thisvar.=$chr;
			}
			else if($chrNext==$chrKnownQuote)
			{
				$chrQuoteToBeEscaping=$chr;
			}
			else
			{
				$bwlQuoteOn=false;
				$chrKnownQuote="";
				if($bwlLeaveQuotesInPlace)
				{
					$thisvar.=$chr;
				}
			}
		}
		else if ($bwlQuoteOn)
		{
			$thisvar.=$chr;
		}
		else
		{
			$thisvar.=$chr;
		}

	}
	$arrOut[$intArrCursor]=$thisvar;
	return $arrOut;
}

function multichrhandle($strIn)
{
	$out="";
	$arrIn=explode(".", $strIn);
	foreach($arrIn as $chr)
	{
		$out.=chr($chr);
	}
	return $out;
}

			
function inList($strList, $item, $MatchOnlyType="") 
//look to see if item is in 
//the space-delimited strList (similar to my ASP version)
	{
		$arrThis=explode(' ', $strList);
		for ($t=0; $t<count($arrThis); $t++)
		{
			$thislen=strlen($arrThis[$t]);
			if($MatchOnlyType=="last")
			{
				
				if ($arrThis[$t]==substr($item, strlen($item)-$thislen))
				{
					return true;
				}	
			}
			else if ($MatchOnlyType=="first")
			{
				if ($arrThis[$t]==substr($item, 0,$thislen))
				{
					return true;
				}	
			}
			else
			{
				if ($arrThis[$t]==$item)
				{
					return true;
				}
			}
		}
		return false;
	}

function RemoveLastCharacterIfMatch($strIn, $chrIn)
	{
		$out=$strIn;
		if (substr($strIn,  strlen($strIn)-1, 1) ==$chrIn)
		{
			$out= substr($strIn, 0, strlen($strIn)-1);
		}
		return $out;
	}
	
function RemoveFirstCharacterIfMatch($strIn, $chrIn)
	{
		$out=$strIn;
		//echo substr($strIn,   0, 1) . "<br>";
		if (substr($strIn,   0, 1) ==$chrIn)
		{
			$out= substr($strIn, 1);
		}
		return $out;
	}
	
function RemoveEndCharactersIfMatch($strIn, $chrIn)
	{
		$out= RemoveFirstCharacterIfMatch($strIn, $chrIn);
	 	$out= RemoveLastCharacterIfMatch($out, $chrIn);
		return $out;
	}         

For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?071128