If the task is too complicated for preg_split, preg_match_all might come in handy, since preg_split is essentially a special case.
I wanted to split a string on a certain character (asterisk), but only if it wasn't escaped (by a preceding backslash). Thus, I should ensure an even number of backslashes before any asterisk meant as a splitter. Look-behind in a regular expression wouldn't work since the length of the preceding backslash sequence can't be fixed. So I turned to preg_match_all:
<?php
$splitter = "/\\*((?:[^\\\\*]|\\\\.)*)/";
preg_match_all($splitter, "*$string", $aPieces, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);
$aPieces = $aPieces[1];
foreach ($aPieces as $idx=>$piece)
$aPieces[$idx] = preg_replace("/\\\\(.)/s", "$1", $piece);
?>
