[cbarnes]

From:
http://smarty.incutio.com/?page=SmartyTips

If you need to create an array from a string inside template use something like this:

{assign var="menu" value=","|split:"optionA,optionB,optionC"}

Comma "," can be replaced with any separator.

Result is the same as in php:

$menu = split(",","optionA,optionB,optionC");
$smarty->assign_by_ref("menu",$menu);