I want to split a php string into parts. I dont want to use explode function.?

[gautham from gitam]

Are there any other ways of splitting a string other than using explode function. I have an array in which there are some strings. I want to split each string into parts.

eg. array('abcdefgh','ijklmnop') into array('a','b','c','d',....) and array('i','j','k',....) etc