split html for pagination

[kusalo]

I have set up a nice javascript pagination system using explode() with a pre-set seperator. This divides the root file by 'item' (an item comprises a title and sub-text)

For some pages the items are quite long and I would like the option to have a page split according to text length. The pagination script requires an array so I have been playing with:
$split_text=chunk_split($str,22,'|');
$split_array=explode('|',$split_text);

The only problem here is it ignores both words and html tags.
The only word-related php I can find is: str_word_count and this also ignores html tags.

I guess I could explode using a (full) stop but this snags if the page includes a path reference - eg. img src=../images/pot.gif
Ditto splitting by space.
In short, there seems too many if{} else{} permutations to try this approach.

So, how to split (or explode) a bunch of html in relation the actual text?
Any suggestions or solutions would be much appreciated.

cheers - arfa

[jr_yeo]

http://www.php-mysql-tutorial.com/php-mysql-paging.php

[kusalo]

thanks for the reply but I am splitting html - not sql data

basically it is all in a simple text file
include 'text_file';

split_explode
print paginated data - if only )

I imagine this issue is not exclusive to me and that there is a standard solution floating about somewhere. Yes?

cheers - arfa

[Twey]

define('WORDS_PER_PAGE', 22);

function getPage($file, $page) {
  $fc = file_get_contents('text_file');
  $firstword = WORDS_PER_PAGE * ($page - 1);
  $lastword = WORDS_PER_PAGE * $page;
  $words = explode(' ', $fc);
  $pgc = '';
  for($i = $firstword; $i < count($words) && $i <= $lastword; ++$i)
    $pgc .= ' ' . $words[$i];
  return $pgc;
}