Q. How do I find out if a string stored in a variable contains a particular substring using PHP? How do I find out (extract) first 5 character of a particular string using Apache and PHP?
A. You need to use the following php functions:
a] strpos() : Find position of first occurrence of a string
b] substr() : Return part of a string
c] substr_replace() : Replacing a substring
Find position of first occurrence of a string with strpos()
Find out if $input contains a # symbol or not:
<?php if (strpos($input, '#') === true ) { print '# symbol found in input'; } else{ print 'There was no # symbol found in input'; } ?>
Extracting a substring with substr()
<?php $input = "nixCraft blog"; // substr syntax // $substring = substr($string,$start,$length); // Get first 5 chars of $input $data = substr($input,0,5); print $data; ?>
This is useful for finding out usernames and other data.
Featured Articles:
- 20 Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know
- My 10 UNIX Command Line Mistakes
- 10 Greatest Open Source Software Of 2009
- Top 5 Email Client For Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows Users
- Top 20 OpenSSH Server Best Security Practices
- Top 10 Open Source Web-Based Project Management Software
- Top 5 Linux Video Editor Software
Want to read Linux tips and tricks, but don't have time to check our blog everyday? Subscribe to our daily email newsletter to make sure you don't miss a single tip/tricks. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here!
- Email FAQ to a friend
- Download PDF version
- Printable version
- Comment RSS feed
- Last Updated: 03/17/10



{ 0 comments… add one now }