How to deal with zero length strings in an array

Hope someone can help.
I need to split a sting (a description of an image) read in from MySQL into separate words and present them as a table of check boxes (they'll be used to select keywords for the image)
I've got the code working as I need it but for one problem.
I use

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$temp_word_array         = explode(" ",$row[$row_count]);

to separate the words out from the string but have found that if there is a double space between words I end up with one or more zero length strings. For example;

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 word array array(17) {
  [0]=>
  string(1) "A"
  [1]=>
  string(3) "tug"
  [2]=>
  string(7) "pulling"
  [3]=>
  string(1) "a"
  [4]=>
  string(4) "ship"
  [5]=>
  string(4) "from"
  [6]=>
  string(3) "the"
  [7]=>
  string(8) "Penzance"
  [8]=>
  string(3) "dry"
  [9]=>
  string(5) "dock."
  [10]=>
  string(0) ""
  [11]=>
  string(3) "One"
  [12]=>
  string(2) "of"
  [13]=>
  string(1) "a"
  [14]=>
  string(6) "series"
  [15]=>
  string(2) "of"
  [16]=>
  string(3) "10."
}

There is a double space after the full stop after 'dock'
When other functions I use later on to clean up the data for what I call junk words ( of, at, the etc) and presenting the output, these functions see the zero length string, assume that's the end of the array and abort.
I have tried using the index key to step through my subsequent 'for' loop to hopefully skip over the zero length string and tried testing for a zero length string but nothing I try works.
This is obviously something there's a function or technique to deal with so could someone enlighten me please.
Thanks.
Phillip

Maybe something like this?

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$new_word_array = array();

$key = 0;
foreach($temp_word_array as  $value) {
   if($value!="") {
      $new_word_array[$key] = $value;
      $key++;
   }

} 

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Bu**er. I'm sure I attempted something very like that as one of the first things I tried.
I obviously got something wrong as your method certainly works.
Sure beats all the complicated methods I've spent the last three days trying on and off.
Anyway I'm a happy bunny now (until I hit the next problem) so thank you very much for your swift and accurate reply.
Keen amateurs with no colleagues to talk to would be really up the creek without people like you helping out.
Thanks and Happy Easter.
Phillip

Otherwise you could have use preg_replace() to replace double spaces with single space.

Thanks for that. That was one of the functions I looked at when I was trying to do it the complicated way.
I didn't think it suitable for me as I couldn't be certain there's not a series of three, or four spaces lurking somewhere in the database which the pattern of the function would then miss (as it is looking for two spaces) and the code would therefore break again.
I dare say there's some regular expression someone could come up with that might work but when I look at doing those my head hurts.
CloudedVision's example solves the problem simply, and it will also catch any other reasons that an empty field occurs in the array for some as yet unforeseen circumstance.

I'd look at str_replace() first. Isn't it faster?

my method is probably the slowest one, but it'll catch triple, quadruple, etc. spaces, unlike preg_replace and str_replace. (actually, you might be able to catch triple spaces with preg_replace, but i know nothing about regular expressions)

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