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Manipulating and Searching Strings in PHP

Manipulating and searching strings in PHP involves changing, extracting, or locating text within strings. Functions like strlen(), strtoupper(), and str_replace() help modify strings, while strpos(), str_contains(), and strstr() assist in finding text. These functions make text handling simple and efficient.

String Manipulation Functions

1. strlen() – Get String Length

Returns the total number of characters in a string, including spaces and special characters. Useful for validating input length.

$text = "Hello World";
echo strlen($text); // Outputs: 11

2. strtoupper() and strtolower() 

Converts all characters in a string to uppercase, making it helpful for case-insensitive comparisons or formatting.

  • strtoupper() converts to uppercase.
  • strtolower() converts to lowercase.
echo strtoupper("hello"); // Outputs: HELLO  
echo strtolower("HELLO"); // Outputs: hello

3. ucfirst() and ucwords() – Capitalize Words

  • ucfirst() Capitalizes the first character of a string, often used for proper names or sentence formatting.
  • ucwords() Capitalizes the first letter of each word in a string, useful for titles or headings.
echo ucfirst("hello world"); // Outputs: Hello world  
echo ucwords("hello world"); // Outputs: Hello World

 4. str_replace() – Replace Text

Searches for a substring and replaces it with another, commonly used for text corrections or filtering.

echo str_replace("world", "PHP", "Hello world"); // Outputs: Hello PHP

5.substr() – Extract Part of String
Extracts a specific portion of a string based on a starting position and optional length, ideal for slicing text.

$text = "Hello World";
echo substr($text, 0, 5); // Outputs: Hello  
echo substr($text, -5);  // Outputs: World

6. strrev() – Reverse a String

Reverses the characters in a string, often used for simple text transformations or checks.

echo strrev("PHP"); // Outputs: PHP

String Searching Functions

1. strpos() – Find Position of Text
Finds the first occurrence of a substring. Returns the position (0-based) or false if not found.

echo strpos("Hello World", "World"); // Outputs: 6

2.strrpos() – Find Last Occurrence

Returns the position of the last occurrence of a substring, helpful when searching from the end of a string.

echo strrpos("Hello Hello", "Hello"); // Outputs: 6

3.stripos() and strripos() – Case-Insensitive Search

  • stripos() – Finds first occurrence (ignores case).
  • strripos() – Finds last occurrence (ignores case).
echo stripos("Hello World", "world"); // Outputs: 6

 4.strstr() – Get Substring from First Occurrence

Returns the part of the string starting from a specified substring, often used for extracting relevant text.

echo strstr("Hello World", "World"); // Outputs: World

5.str_contains() – Check If String Contains Text (PHP 8+)

Checks if a string contains a certain substring (PHP 8+), returning true or false, ideal for quick checks.

var_dump(str_contains("Hello World", "World")); // true

6.str_starts_with() and str_ends_with() (PHP 8+)

  • str_starts_with() – Checks if a string starts with a substring.
  • str_ends_with() – Checks if a string ends with a substring.
var_dump(str_starts_with("Hello World", "Hello")); // true  
var_dump(str_ends_with("Hello World", "World"));   // true

 


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