thanks for the quick reply :) however, when I used the split(";;\w*;" , $data1 ); it split the text where "[b];;;[/b]" was found (as I would expect, and need to happen :), because it sometimes is no text between ;; and ; ), but it didn't split the text where ";;somevariabletext;". I do not know if it is relevant, but the variable text is in fact an url, like this: "[b];;[/b]http://www.variable.com/variblename.variableextention[b];[/b]". an example of the text would be "audun is doing his homework[b];;[/b]http://www.audun.com/test.php[b];[/b]whenever he feels like it" Am I doing it all wrong? Thanks, Audun