In PHP you can divide an array into an unknown number of chunks by specifying the number of elements in each chunk. To do this you would use the array_chunk function. But what happens when you don’t know the number of elements and just want to split the array in an X number of elements? Unfortunately, we don’t have such a function in PHP but of course, we can create our own function.

In a quick google search, you can find hundreds of solutions, but from my experience, I was unable to find something simple to do the job. Most of them seem to be very complex and vulnerable to bugs.

OK. No more text, here is the function:

function splitMyArray(array $input_array, int $size, $preserve_keys = null): array
{
    $nr = (int)ceil(count($input_array) / $size);

    if ($nr > 0) {
        return array_chunk($input_array, $nr, $preserve_keys);
    }

    return $input_array;
}

Usage:

Suppose that you have this array:

$myArray = [
    'a',
    'b',
    'c',
    'd',
    'e',
    'f',
    'g',
    'h',
]

And you want to divide it into 3 parts. Here is how you do it:

splitMyArray($myArray, 3)

The result will be:

[
    0 =>
        [
            0 => 'a',
            1 => 'b',
            2 => 'c',
        ],
    1 =>
        [
            0 => 'd',
            1 => 'e',
            2 => 'f',
        ],
    2 =>
        [
            0 => 'g',
            1 => 'h',
        ],
]

Pretty nice, don’t you think? Easy and simple. As Leonardo da Vinci said: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Note: Make sure that you have enough elements in the array. At least 2 items for each chunk.