Count spaces within exploded quotations

In simplest terms im trying t开发者_高级运维o change the data string if more than 4 spaces are found within quotations. I'm able to do this on a simple string but not within exploded quotes as it becomes an array which count functions wont accept. Is there a regex to do what im looking for in this case or something?

$data = 'Hello World "This is a test string! Jack and Jill went up the hill."';
$halt = 'String had more than 4 spaces.';
$arr = explode('"', $data);
if (substr_count($arr, ' ') >= 4) {
$data = implode('"', $arr);
$data = $halt;

As far as I understand your request, this will do the job

$data = 'Hello World "This is a test string! Jack and Jill went up the hill."';
$halt = 'String had more than 4 spaces.';

// split $data on " and captures them
$arr = preg_split('/(")/', $data, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

// must we count spaces ?
$countspace = 0;
foreach ($arr as $str) {
    // swap $countspace when " is encountered
    if ($str == '"') $countspace = !$countspace;
    // we have to count spaces
    if ($countspace) {
        // more than 4 spaces
        if (substr_count($str, ' ') >= 4) {
            // change data 
            $data = $halt;
            break;
        }
    }
}
echo $data,"\n";

output:

String had more than 4 spaces.

If you define:

function count_spaces($str) {return substr_count($str, ' '); }

you can then use array_sum(array_map("count_spaces", $arr)) to count all of the spaces in all of the strings in $arr.