strpos

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

strposFind the position of the first occurrence of a substring in a string

Description

strpos(string $haystack, string $needle, int $offset = 0): int|false

Find the numeric position of the first occurrence of needle in the haystack string.

Parameters

haystack

The string to search in.

needle

Prior to PHP 8.0.0, if needle is not a string, it is converted to an integer and applied as the ordinal value of a character. This behavior is deprecated as of PHP 7.3.0, and relying on it is highly discouraged. Depending on the intended behavior, the needle should either be explicitly cast to string, or an explicit call to chr() should be performed.

offset

If specified, search will start this number of characters counted from the beginning of the string. If the offset is negative, the search will start this number of characters counted from the end of the string.

Return Values

Returns the position of where the needle exists relative to the beginning of the haystack string (independent of offset). Also note that string positions start at 0, and not 1.

Returns false if the needle was not found.

Warning

This function may return Boolean false, but may also return a non-Boolean value which evaluates to false. Please read the section on Booleans for more information. Use the === operator for testing the return value of this function.

Changelog

Version Description
8.0.0 Passing an int as needle is no longer supported.
7.3.0 Passing an int as needle has been deprecated.
7.1.0 Support for negative offsets has been added.

Examples

Example #1 Using ===

<?php
$mystring
= 'abc';
$findme = 'a';
$pos = strpos($mystring, $findme);

// Note our use of ===. Simply == would not work as expected
// because the position of 'a' was the 0th (first) character.
if ($pos === false) {
echo
"The string '$findme' was not found in the string '$mystring'";
} else {
echo
"The string '$findme' was found in the string '$mystring'";
echo
" and exists at position $pos";
}
?>

Example #2 Using !==

<?php
$mystring
= 'abc';
$findme = 'a';
$pos = strpos($mystring, $findme);

// The !== operator can also be used. Using != would not work as expected
// because the position of 'a' is 0. The statement (0 != false) evaluates
// to false.
if ($pos !== false) {
echo
"The string '$findme' was found in the string '$mystring'";
echo
" and exists at position $pos";
} else {
echo
"The string '$findme' was not found in the string '$mystring'";
}
?>

Example #3 Using an offset

<?php
// We can search for the character, ignoring anything before the offset
$newstring = 'abcdef abcdef';
$pos = strpos($newstring, 'a', 1); // $pos = 7, not 0
?>

Notes

Note: This function is binary-safe.

See Also

  • stripos() - Find the position of the first occurrence of a case-insensitive substring in a string
  • str_contains() - Determine if a string contains a given substring
  • str_ends_with() - Checks if a string ends with a given substring
  • str_starts_with() - Checks if a string starts with a given substring
  • strrpos() - Find the position of the last occurrence of a substring in a string
  • strripos() - Find the position of the last occurrence of a case-insensitive substring in a string
  • strstr() - Find the first occurrence of a string
  • strpbrk() - Search a string for any of a set of characters
  • substr() - Return part of a string
  • preg_match() - Perform a regular expression match

add a note

User Contributed Notes 46 notes

up
8
Aleksey Korzun
11 years ago
Just a quick note, if by some chance you pass an array to strpos function you might have unexpected behaviour.

<?php
$foobar
= array();

if(
strpos($foobar, 'something') !== false) {

}
?>

The above condition will actually pass and execute your code.
up
3
digitalpbk [at] gmail.com
14 years ago
This functions throws an "Offset not contained in string" error if the offset is not in between 0 and the length of string.
up
3
ah dot d at hotmail dot com
14 years ago
A strpos modification to return an array of all the positions of a needle in the haystack

<?php
function strallpos($haystack,$needle,$offset = 0){
   
$result = array();
    for(
$i = $offset; $i<strlen($haystack); $i++){
       
$pos = strpos($haystack,$needle,$i);
        if(
$pos !== FALSE){
           
$offset $pos;
            if(
$offset >= $i){
               
$i = $offset;
               
$result[] = $offset;
            }
        }
    }
    return
$result;
}
?>

example:-

<?php
$haystack
= "ASD is trying to get out of the ASDs cube but the other ASDs told him that his behavior will destroy the ASDs world";

$needle = "ASD";

print_r(strallpos($haystack,$needle));

//getting all the positions starting from a specified position

print_r(strallpos($haystack,$needle,34));
?>
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4
spinicrus at gmail dot com
17 years ago
if you want to get the position of a substring relative to a substring of your string, BUT in REVERSE way:

<?php

function strpos_reverse_way($string,$charToFind,$relativeChar) {
   
//
   
$relativePos = strpos($string,$relativeChar);
   
$searchPos = $relativePos;
   
$searchChar = '';
   
//
   
while ($searchChar != $charToFind) {
       
$newPos = $searchPos-1;
       
$searchChar = substr($string,$newPos,strlen($charToFind));
       
$searchPos = $newPos;
    }
   
//
   
if (!empty($searchChar)) {
       
//
       
return $searchPos;
        return
TRUE;
    }
    else {
        return
FALSE;
    }
   
//
}

?>
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3
gjh42 - simonokewode at hotmail dot com
12 years ago
A pair of functions to replace every nth occurrence of a string with another string, starting at any position in the haystack. The first works on a string and the second works on a single-level array of strings, treating it as a single string for replacement purposes (any needles split over two array elements are ignored).

Can be used for formatting dynamically-generated HTML output without touching the original generator: e.g. add a newLine class tag to every third item in a floated list, starting with the fourth item.

<?php
/* String Replace at Intervals   by Glenn Herbert (gjh42)    2010-12-17
*/

//(basic locator by someone else - name unknown)
//strnposr() - Find the position of nth needle in haystack.
function strnposr($haystack, $needle, $occurrence, $pos = 0) {
    return (
$occurrence<2)?strpos($haystack, $needle, $pos):strnposr($haystack,$needle,$occurrence-1,strpos($haystack, $needle, $pos) + 1);
}

//gjh42
//replace every nth occurrence of $needle with $repl, starting from any position
function str_replace_int($needle, $repl, $haystack, $interval, $first=1, $pos=0) {
  if (
$pos >= strlen($haystack) or substr_count($haystack, $needle, $pos) < $first) return $haystack;
 
$firstpos = strnposr($haystack, $needle, $first, $pos);
 
$nl = strlen($needle);
 
$qty = floor(substr_count($haystack, $needle, $firstpos + 1)/$interval);
  do {
//in reverse order
   
$nextpos = strnposr($haystack, $needle, ($qty * $interval) + 1, $firstpos);
   
$qty--;
   
$haystack = substr_replace($haystack, $repl, $nextpos, $nl);
  } while (
$nextpos > $firstpos);
  return
$haystack;
}
 
//$needle = string to find
  //$repl = string to replace needle
  //$haystack = string to do replacing in
  //$interval = number of needles in loop
  //$first=1 = first occurrence of needle to replace (defaults to first)
  //$pos=0 = position in haystack string to start from (defaults to first)

//replace every nth occurrence of $needle with $repl, starting from any position, in a single-level array
function arr_replace_int($needle, $repl, $arr, $interval, $first=1, $pos=0, $glue='|+|') {
  if (!
is_array($arr))  return $arr;
  foreach(
$arr as $key=>$value){
    if (
is_array($arr[$key])) return $arr;
  }
 
$haystack = implode($glue, $arr);
 
$haystack = str_replace_int($needle, $repl, $haystack, $interval, $first, $pos);
 
$tarr = explode($glue, $haystack);
 
$i = 0;
  foreach(
$arr as $key=>$value){
   
$arr[$key] = $tarr[$i];
   
$i++;
  }
  return
$arr;
}
?>
If $arr is not an array, or a multilevel array, it is returned unchanged.
up
3
jburns131 at jbwebware dot com
15 years ago
The Situation:

I wanted to return TRUE if strpos returned position 0, and only position 0, without the added overhead of preg_match.

The Solution:

As PHP treats 0 (zero) as NULL, and strpos returns the int 0 (but not NULL), I used type casting and the "===" comparison operator (as it compares types) to resolve my issue.

<?php

$hayStack
= "dbHost";
$needle  = "db"
$needlePos = strpos($hayStack, $needle);

if((string)
$needlePos === (string)0) {
    echo
"db is in position zero";
} else {
    echo
"db is NOT in position zero";
}

?>

Returns:
db is in position zero

<?php

$hayStack
= "another_db_host";
$needle  = "db"
$needlePos = strpos($hayStack, $needle);

if((string)
$needlePos === (string)0) {
    echo
"db is in position zero";
} else {
    echo
"db is NOT in position zero";
}

?>

This returns:
db is in NOT position zero
up
2
ilaymyhat-rem0ve at yahoo dot com
16 years ago
This might be useful.

<?php
class String{
   
   
//Look for a $needle in $haystack in any position
   
public static function contains(&$haystack, &$needle, &$offset)
    {
       
$result = strpos($haystack, $needle, $offset);
        return
$result !== FALSE;
    }
   
   
//intuitive implementation .. if not found returns -1.
   
public static function strpos(&$haystack, &$needle, &$offset)
    {
       
$result = strpos($haystack, $needle, $offset);
        if (
$result === FALSE )
        {
            return -
1;
        }
        return
$result;
    }
   
}
//String
?>
up
2
Suggested re-write for pink WARNING box
16 years ago
WARNING

As strpos may return either FALSE (substring absent) or 0 (substring at start of string), strict versus loose equivalency operators must be used very carefully.

To know that a substring is absent, you must use: 

=== FALSE

To know that a substring is present (in any position including 0), you can use either of:

!== FALSE  (recommended)
> -1  (note: or greater than any negative number)

To know that a substring is at the start of the string, you must use: 

=== 0

To know that a substring is in any position other than the start, you can use any of:

> 0  (recommended)
!= 0  (note: but not !== 0 which also equates to FALSE)
!= FALSE  (disrecommended as highly confusing)

Also note that you cannot compare a value of "" to the returned value of strpos. With a loose equivalence operator (== or !=) it will return results which don't distinguish between the substring's presence versus position. With a strict equivalence operator (=== or !==) it will always return false.
up
2
user at nomail dot com
16 years ago
This is a bit more useful when scanning a large string for all occurances between 'tags'.

<?php
function getStrsBetween($s,$s1,$s2=false,$offset=0) {
   
/*====================================================================
    Function to scan a string for items encapsulated within a pair of tags

    getStrsBetween(string, tag1, <tag2>, <offset>

    If no second tag is specified, then match between identical tags

    Returns an array indexed with the encapsulated text, which is in turn
    a sub-array, containing the position of each item.

    Notes:
    strpos($needle,$haystack,$offset)
    substr($string,$start,$length)

    ====================================================================*/

   
if( $s2 === false ) { $s2 = $s1; }
   
$result = array();
   
$L1 = strlen($s1);
   
$L2 = strlen($s2);

    if(
$L1==0 || $L2==0 ) {
        return
false;
    }

    do {
       
$pos1 = strpos($s,$s1,$offset);

        if(
$pos1 !== false ) {
           
$pos1 += $L1;

           
$pos2 = strpos($s,$s2,$pos1);

            if(
$pos2 !== false ) {
               
$key_len = $pos2 - $pos1;

               
$this_key = substr($s,$pos1,$key_len);

                if( !
array_key_exists($this_key,$result) ) {
                   
$result[$this_key] = array();
                }

               
$result[$this_key][] = $pos1;

               
$offset = $pos2 + $L2;
            } else {
               
$pos1 = false;
            }
        }
    } while(
$pos1 !== false );

    return
$result;
}
?>
up
3
akarmenia at gmail dot com
13 years ago
My version of strpos with needles as an array. Also allows for a string, or an array inside an array.

<?php
function strpos_array($haystack, $needles) {
    if (
is_array($needles) ) {
        foreach (
$needles as $str) {
            if (
is_array($str) ) {
               
$pos = strpos_array($haystack, $str);
            } else {
               
$pos = strpos($haystack, $str);
            }
            if (
$pos !== FALSE) {
                return
$pos;
            }
        }
    } else {
        return
strpos($haystack, $needles);
    }
}

// Test
echo strpos_array('This is a test', array('test', 'drive')); // Output is 10

?>
up
2
Anonymous
11 years ago
The most straightforward way to prevent this function from returning 0 is:

  strpos('x'.$haystack, $needle, 1)

The 'x' is simply a garbage character which is only there to move everything 1 position.
The number 1 is there to make sure that this 'x' is ignored in the search.
This way, if $haystack starts with $needle, then the function returns 1 (rather than 0).
up
2
Achintya
14 years ago
A function I made to find the first occurrence of a particular needle not enclosed in quotes(single or double). Works for simple nesting (no backslashed nesting allowed).

<?php
function strposq($haystack, $needle, $offset = 0){
   
$len = strlen($haystack);
   
$charlen = strlen($needle);
   
$flag1 = false;
   
$flag2 = false;
    for(
$i = $offset; $i < $len; $i++){
        if(
substr($haystack, $i, 1) == "'"){
           
$flag1 = !$flag1 && !$flag2 ? true : false;
        }
        if(
substr($haystack, $i, 1) == '"'){
           
$flag2 = !$flag1 && !$flag2 ? true : false;
        }
        if(
substr($haystack, $i, $charlen) == $needle && !$flag1 && !$flag2){
            return
$i;       
        }
    }
    return
false;
}

echo
strposq("he'llo'character;\"'som\"e;crap", ";"); //16
?>
up
1
Anonymous
13 years ago
beware the mindless "if needle is not string" :

root@voice1:/www/voice_ed#php -r 'var_dump(strpos("X1234567",5));'
bool(false)
root@voice1:/www/voice_ed#php -r 'var_dump(strpos("X1234567","5"));'
int(5)
root@voice1:/www/voice_ed#
up
1
usulaco at gmail dot com
13 years ago
Parse strings between two others in to array.

<?php
function g($string,$start,$end){
    
preg_match_all('/' . preg_quote($start, '/') . '(.*?)'. preg_quote($end, '/').'/i', $string, $m);
    
$out = array();

     foreach(
$m[1] as $key => $value){
      
$type = explode('::',$value);
       if(
sizeof($type)>1){
          if(!
is_array($out[$type[0]]))
            
$out[$type[0]] = array();
         
$out[$type[0]][] = $type[1];
       } else {
         
$out[] = $value;
       }
     }
  return
$out;
}
print_r(g('Sample text, [/text to extract/] Rest of sample text [/WEB::http://google.com/] bla bla bla. ','[/','/]'));
?>

results:
Array
(
    [0] => text to extract
    [WEB] => Array
        (
            [0] => http://google.com
        )

)

Can be helpfull to custom parsing :)
up
1
olmstead31 at yahoo dot com
14 years ago
I found that whatever I was using as a test with strpos it came out false exept if $pos was == 1

I figured it gives me a numeric value if found else it is null or false
here is what i did to make my code work:

<?php
//EXAMPLE 1:
$quiamime = ',64,68,70,';
$me = '64'
$posi = strpos($quiaime, ",$me,");  //posi is equal to 0
if (!is_numeric($posi)){
//code here
}else{
 
//else code here
}

//EXAMPLE 2:
$quiamime = ',68,70,64,';
$me = '64'
$posi = strpos($quiaime, ",$me,");  //posi is equal to 6
if (!is_numeric($posi)){
//code here
}else{
 
//else code here
}

//EXAMPLE 3:
$quiamime = ',68,70,';
$me = '64'
$posi = strpos($quiaime, ",$me,");  //posi is equal to NULL or FALSE
if (!is_numeric($posi)){
//code here
}else{
 
//else code here
}
?>
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1
yasindagli at gmail dot com
14 years ago
This function finds postion of nth occurence of a letter starting from offset.

<?php
function nth_position($str, $letter, $n, $offset = 0){
   
$str_arr = str_split($str);
   
$letter_size = array_count_values(str_split(substr($str, $offset)));
    if( !isset(
$letter_size[$letter])){
       
trigger_error('letter "' . $letter . '" does not exist in ' . $str . ' after ' . $offset . '. position', E_USER_WARNING);
        return
false;
    } else if(
$letter_size[$letter] < $n) {
       
trigger_error('letter "' . $letter . '" does not exist ' . $n .' times in ' . $str . ' after ' . $offset . '. position', E_USER_WARNING);
        return
false;
    }
    for(
$i = $offset, $x = 0, $count = (count($str_arr) - $offset); $i < $count, $x != $n; $i++){
        if(
$str_arr[$i] == $letter){
           
$x++;
        }
    }
    return
$i - 1;
}

echo
nth_position('foobarbaz', 'a', 2); //7
echo nth_position('foobarbaz', 'b', 1, 4); //6
?>
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1
Tim
15 years ago
If you would like to find all occurences of a needle inside a haystack you could use this function strposall($haystack,$needle);. It will return an array with all the strpos's.

<?php
/**
* strposall
*
* Find all occurrences of a needle in a haystack
*
* @param string $haystack
* @param string $needle
* @return array or false
*/
function strposall($haystack,$needle){
   
   
$s=0;
   
$i=0;
   
    while (
is_integer($i)){
       
       
$i = strpos($haystack,$needle,$s);
       
        if (
is_integer($i)) {
           
$aStrPos[] = $i;
           
$s = $i+strlen($needle);
        }
    }
    if (isset(
$aStrPos)) {
        return
$aStrPos;
    }
    else {
        return
false;
    }
}
?>
up
1
mickRacky
15 years ago
here's a php implementation of stdc++ string class find_first_of using strpos.

<?php
function find_first_of($haystack, $needlesAsString, $offset=0)
{
 
$max = strlen($needlesAsString);
 
$index = strlen($haystack)+1;
  for(
$ii=0; $ii<$max;$ii++){
   
$result = strpos($haystack,$needlesAsString[$ii], $offset);
    if(
$result !== FALSE  && $result < $index)
     
$index = $result;
  }
  return (
$index > strlen($haystack)? FALSE: $index);
}
?>

Example:
<?php
$test
="Ralph: One of these days, Alice!!";
$look_for=":!,";   // punctuation marks

$ss = 0;
while(
$answer=find_first_of($test,$look_for,$ss) ) {
  echo
$answer . "\n";
 
$ss = $answer+1;
}
?>

This prints out:
5
24
31
32
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1
jamie at jamiechong dot ca
17 years ago
Try this function to find the first position of needle before a given offset.

For example:
<?php
$s
= "This is a test a is This";
$offset = strpos($s, "test");

strnpos($s, "is", $offset);  // returns 17
strnpos($s, "is", -$offset); // returns 5

// Works just like strpos if $offset is positive.
// If $offset is negative, return the first position of needle
// before before $offset.
function strnpos($haystack, $needle, $offset=0)
{
    if (
$offset>=0)
       
$result=strpos($haystack, $needle, $offset);
    else
    {
       
$offset=strlen($haystack)+$offset;
       
$haystack=strrev($haystack);
       
$needle=strrev($needle);
       
$result=strpos($haystack, $needle, $offset);
        if (
$result!==false)
        {
           
$result+=strlen($needle);
           
$result=strlen($haystack)-$result;
        }
    }
    return
$result;
}

?>
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1
admin at xylotspace dot com
17 years ago
Yay! I came up with a very useful function. This finds a beginning marker and an ending marker (the first after the beginning marker), and returns the contents between them. You specify an initial position in order to tell it where to start looking. You can use a while() or for() loop to get all occurence of a certain string within a string (for example, taking all hyperlinks in a string of HTML code)...

<?php
function get_middle($source, $beginning, $ending, $init_pos) {
   
$beginning_pos = strpos($source, $beginning, $init_pos);
   
$middle_pos = $beginning_pos + strlen($beginning);
   
$ending_pos = strpos($source, $ending, $beginning_pos + 1);
   
$middle = substr($source, $middle_pos, $ending_pos - $middle_pos);
    return
$middle;
}
?>

For example, to find the URL of the very first hyperlink in an HTML string $data, use:

$first_url = get_middle($data, '<a href="', '"', 0);

It's done wonders for scraping HTML pages with certain tools on my website.
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1
bishop
20 years ago
Code like this:
<?php
if (strpos('this is a test', 'is') !== false) {
    echo
"found it";
}
?>

gets repetitive, is not very self-explanatory, and most people handle it incorrectly anyway. Make your life easier:

<?php
function str_contains($haystack, $needle, $ignoreCase = false) {
    if (
$ignoreCase) {
       
$haystack = strtolower($haystack);
       
$needle   = strtolower($needle);
    }
   
$needlePos = strpos($haystack, $needle);
    return (
$needlePos === false ? false : ($needlePos+1));
}
?>

Then, you may do:
<?php
// simplest use
if (str_contains('this is a test', 'is')) {
    echo
"Found it";
}

// when you need the position, as well whether it's present
$needlePos = str_contains('this is a test', 'is');
if (
$needlePos) {
    echo
'Found it at position ' . ($needlePos-1);
}

// you may also ignore case
$needlePos = str_contains('this is a test', 'IS', true);
if (
$needlePos) {
    echo
'Found it at position ' . ($needlePos-1);
}
?>
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1
martijn at martijnfrazer dot nl
12 years ago
This is a function I wrote to find all occurrences of a string, using strpos recursively.

<?php
function strpos_recursive($haystack, $needle, $offset = 0, &$results = array()) {               
   
$offset = strpos($haystack, $needle, $offset);
    if(
$offset === false) {
        return
$results;           
    } else {
       
$results[] = $offset;
        return
strpos_recursive($haystack, $needle, ($offset + 1), $results);
    }
}
?>

This is how you use it:

<?php
$string
= 'This is some string';
$search = 'a';
$found = strpos_recursive($string, $search);

if(
$found) {
    foreach(
$found as $pos) {
        echo
'Found "'.$search.'" in string "'.$string.'" at position <b>'.$pos.'</b><br />';
    }   
} else {
    echo
'"'.$search.'" not found in "'.$string.'"';
}
?>
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1
teddanzig at yahoo dot com
15 years ago
routine to return -1 if there is no match for strpos

<?php
//instr function to mimic vb instr fucntion
function InStr($haystack, $needle)
{
   
$pos=strpos($haystack, $needle);
    if (
$pos !== false)
    {
        return
$pos;
    }
    else
    {
        return -
1;
    }
}
?>
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1
gal_chen123 at hotmail dot co dot il
17 years ago
this function returns the text between 2 strings:

<?php
function get_between ($text, $s1, $s2) {
   
$mid_url = "";
   
$pos_s = strpos($text,$s1);
   
$pos_e = strpos($text,$s2);
    for (
$i=$pos_s+strlen($s1) ; ( ( $i < ($pos_e)) && $i < strlen($text) ) ; $i++ ) {
       
$mid_url .= $text[$i];
    }
    return
$mid_url;
}
?>

if $s1 or $s2 are not found, $mid_url will be empty
to add an offset, simply compare $pos_s to the offset, and only let it continue if the offset is smaller then $pos_s.
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1
dale at ucsc dot edu
18 years ago
if you want need a fast function to find the first occurrence of any ch element of an needle array this function might be of use:
<?php
$eurl
= strpos_needle_array($text, array('"'=>0,'\''=>0,'>'=>0, ' '=>0, "\n"=>0), $surl);

function
strpos_needle_array(& $text, $needle_ary, $offset=0){   
    for(
$ch_pos=$offset;$ch_pos<strlen($text);$ch_pos++){
        if(isset(
$needle_ary[$text[$ch_pos]])){
            return
$ch_pos;
        }
    }
    return
false;
}
?>
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1
philip
19 years ago
Many people look for in_string which does not exist in PHP, so, here's the most efficient form of in_string() (that works in both PHP 4/5) that I can think of:
<?php
function in_string($needle, $haystack, $insensitive = 0) {
    if (
$insensitive) {
        return (
false !== stristr($haystack, $needle)) ? true : false;
    } else {
        return (
false !== strpos($haystack, $needle))  ? true : false;
    }
}
?>
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2
arias at elleondeoro dot com
19 years ago
If you want to get all positions in an array, you can use this function. If the optional parameter count is especified, the function will put there the number of matches.

<?php
function strallpos($pajar, $aguja, $offset=0, &$count=null) {
  if (
$offset > strlen($pajar)) trigger_error("strallpos(): Offset not contained in string.", E_USER_WARNING);
 
$match = array();
  for (
$count=0; (($pos = strpos($pajar, $aguja, $offset)) !== false); $count++) {
   
$match[] = $pos;
   
$offset = $pos + strlen($aguja);
  }
  return
$match;
}
?>
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0
mtroy dot student at gmail dot com
11 years ago
when you want to know how much of substring occurrences, you'll use "substr_count".
But, retrieve their positions, will be harder.
So, you can do it by starting with the last occurrence :

function strpos_r($haystack, $needle)
{
    if(strlen($needle) > strlen($haystack))
        trigger_error(sprintf("%s: length of argument 2 must be <= argument 1", __FUNCTION__), E_USER_WARNING);

    $seeks = array();
    while($seek = strrpos($haystack, $needle))
    {
        array_push($seeks, $seek);
        $haystack = substr($haystack, 0, $seek);
    }
    return $seeks;
}

it will return an array of all occurrences a the substring in the string

Example :

$test = "this is a test for testing a test function... blah blah";
var_dump(strpos_r($test, "test"));

// output

array(3) {
  [0]=>
  int(29)
  [1]=>
  int(19)
  [2]=>
  int(10)
}

Paul-antoine
Malézieux.
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0
rjeggens at ijskoud dot org
12 years ago
I lost an hour before I noticed that strpos only returns FALSE as a boolean, never TRUE.. This means that

strpos() !== false

is a different beast then:

strpos() === true

since the latter will never be true. After I found out, The warning in the documentation made a lot more sense.
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0
jim at terrys dot net
12 years ago
strpos that accepts an array for $needle

<?php
// strpos that takes an array of values to match against a string
// note the stupid argument order (to match strpos)
function strpos_arr($haystack, $needle) {
    if(!
is_array($needle)) $needle = array($needle);
    foreach(
$needle as $what) {
        if((
$pos = strpos($haystack, $what))!==false) return $pos;
    }
    return
false;
}
?>
----------------------------
http://www.show-ip.org
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0
gambajaja at yahoo dot com
13 years ago
<?php
$my_array
= array ('100,101', '200,201', '300,301');
$check_me_in = array ('100','200','300','400');
foreach (
$check_me_in as $value_cmi){
   
$is_in=FALSE; #asume that $check_me_in isn't in $my_array
   
foreach ($my_array as $value_my){
       
$pos = strpos($value_my, $value_cmi);
        if (
$pos===0)
           
$pos++;
        if (
$pos==TRUE){
           
$is_in=TRUE;
           
$value_my2=$value_my;
            }
    }
    if (
$is_in) echo "ID $value_cmi in \$check_me_in I found in value '$value_my2' \n";
}
?>

The above example will output
ID 100 in $check_me_in I found in value '100,101'
ID 200 in $check_me_in I found in value '200,201'
ID 300 in $check_me_in I found in value '300,301'
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0
juniordez at gmail dot com
14 years ago
Function to get the string pos ($search), before the position ($pos) passed as parameter.

<?php

function strposReverse( $str, $search, $pos ){
       
$str = strrev($str);
       
$search = strrev($search);
       
$pos = (strlen($str) - 1) - $pos;
       
       
$posRev = strpos( $str, $search, $pos );
        return (
strlen($str) - 1) - $posRev - (strlen($search) - 1);
    }
?>
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0
peterzuzek at gmail dot com
15 years ago
A function that return the first occurance of a number in a string, if anyone needs it.

Translation/prevod:
Funkcija, ki vrača pozicijo prve številke v besedi, če jo kdo potrebuje.

<?php

   
function firstNumPos($str) {
       
$poses = array(); // will be storing positions of the numbers

       
for($i = 0; $i < 10; ++$i) { // cycle through numbers
           
if(($a = strpos($str, (string)$i)) !== false) {
               
$poses[] = $a;    // append the position of
                                // the first occurance of the number
           
}
        }
        if(isset(
$poses[0])) { // if array not empty
           
sort($poses);        // sort to get the lowest one on the 'bottom'
           
return $poses[0];    // and return it
       
}
        return
false; // otherwise return false

   
} // firstNumPos()

?>
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0
Chuzasoft Inc. ARGENTINA
15 years ago
Hi! Don't you people miss the pretty comparison operator 'LIKE' from mySql in PHP??.
I've made this funtion to emulate that method. It's for search a match string into another String
using the '%' caracter just like you do un the LIKE syntax.
For example:

<?php
$mystring
= "Hi, this is good!";
$searchthis = "%thi% goo%";

$resp = milike($mystring,$searchthis);

       
if (
$resp){
   echo
"milike = VERDADERO";
} else{
   echo
"milike = FALSO";
}

?>
Will print:
milike = VERDADERO

and so on...

this is the function:

<?php
function milike($cadena,$busca){
    if(
$busca=="") return 1;
   
   
$vi = split("%",$busca);
    
$offset=0;
    for(
$n=0;$n<count($vi);$n++){
        if(
$vi[$n]== ""){
            if(
$vi[0]== ""){
                  
$tieneini = 1;
            }
        } else {
           
$newoff=strpos($cadena,$vi[$n],$offset);
            if(
$newoff!==false){
                if(!
$tieneini){
                    if(
$offset!=$newoff){
                        return
false;
                    }
                }
                if(
$n==count($vi)-1){
                    if(
$vi[$n] != substr($cadena,strlen($cadena)-strlen($vi[$n]), strlen($vi[$n]))){
                        return
false;
                    }

                } else {
                   
$offset = $newoff + strlen($vi[$n]);
                 }
            } else {
                return
false;
            }
        }
    }
    return
true;
}
?>

Good luck!
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0
paul at thiswayupdesign dot co dot uk
15 years ago
I wasn't aware of the !== operator, only the === for false. I was using this code on strpos:

<?php
while( ! ($start=@strpos($source,$startTag,$end)) === false) {
 
// ...
}
?>

This gave a false if the string was found at position 0, which is weird.

However using

<?php
while(($start=@strpos($source,$startTag,$end)) !== false) {
 
// ...
}
?>

Gives no such error and seems to work correctly
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0
Benjie
16 years ago
str_replace evaluates its arguments exactly once.

for example:

<?php
$page
= str_replace("##randompicture##", getrandompicture(), $page);
?>

will call getrandompicture() once, ie it will insert the same random picture for each occurrence of ##randompicture## :(

Here is my quick and dirty workaround:

<?php
function add_random_pictures($text) {

  while ((
$i = strpos($text, "##randompicture##")) !== false) {
   
$text = substr_replace($text, getrandompicture(), $i, strlen("##randompicture##"));
  }
  return
$text;

}

$page = add_random_pictures($page);
?>
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0
Rich Deeson
16 years ago
Here's a somewhat more efficient way to truncate a string at the end of a word. This will end the string on the last dot or last space, whichever is closer to the cut off point. In some cases, a full stop may not be followed by a space eg when followed by a HTML tag.

<?php
    $shortstring
= substr($originalstring, 0, 400);
   
$lastdot = strrpos($shortstring, ".");
   
$lastspace = strrpos($shortstring, " ");
   
$shortstring = substr($shortstring, 0, ($lastdot > $lastspace? $lastdot : $lastspace));
?>

Obviously, if you only want to split on a space, you can simplify this:

<?php
    $shortstring
= substr($originalstring, 0, 400);
   
$shortstring = substr($shortstring, 0, strrpos($shortstring, " "));
?>
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0
sinai [at] simnet [dot] is
17 years ago
If you want to check for either IE6 or 7 individually.

<?php

function browserIE($version)
{
  if(
$version == 6 || $version == 7)
  {
   
$browser = strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], "MSIE ".$version.".0;");
          
    if(
$browser == true)
    {
      return
true;
    }
    else
    {
      return
false;
    }
  else
  {
    return
false;
}

?>
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0
takapz at flor dot it
19 years ago
here a little function for tag parsing

<?php
function parsing($tag,$string) {
       
$start=strpos($string,"<" . $tag . ">" );
       
$start=$start + strlen("<" . $tag . ">");
        
$end=(strpos($string, "</" . $tag . ">"));
        
$num=  ($end - $start);
        
$valore=substr($string,$start,$num);
          return
$valore;
}
?>
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0
ebypdx at comcast dot net
20 years ago
counting the occurrences of a substring, recursive-style instead of looping.

<?php
function countSubstrs($haystack, $needle)
{
    return ((
$p = strpos($haystack, $needle)) === false) ? 0 : (1 + countSubstrs(substr($haystack, $p+1), $needle));
}
?>
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0
kingbusiness at hotmail dot com
20 years ago
A simple function to find the number of occurances in a string within a string

<?php
function StringCount($searchstring, $findstring)
{
    return (
strpos($searchstring, $findstring) === false ? 0 count(split($findstring, $searchstring)) - 1);
}
?>
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-1
Mark Oates
12 years ago
When using GLOB_BRACE to find files on a local computer, note that including the drive lettername within the braces may cause the behavior to not work as expected:

<?php

$location
= "{c:/foo/*.txt,c:/foo/bar/*.txt}"; // < will NOT work

$location = "c:{/foo/*.txt,/foo/bar/*.txt}"; // < works

$location = "c:/{foo/*.txt,foo/bar/*.txt}"; // < works

$location = "{/foo/*.txt,/foo/bar/*.txt}"; // < works

print_r(glob($location, GLOB_BRACE));

?>
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-1
daevid at daevid dot com
14 years ago
Dan Brown and I had a discussion on the PHP list about the speed difference between the popular three string searching techniques. He wrote a simple timing test, and I adapted it further. The end result is that all three are very close and not even noticeable for sets < 1M. Although, technically strpos() is about twice as fast (as the docs allude to above). Here it is for your own amusement and testing purposes.

<?php
for ($i = 0; $i < 1000000; $i++ )
   
$o[] =
sprintf('%04d-%02d-%02d',rand(0000,9999),rand(00,99),rand(00,99));
#print_r($o);
echo "array of ".number_format($i)."\n";
###################################################################
$now = microtime(true);
for(
$i=0;$i<count($o);$i++) {
       if(
preg_match('/^[0]{4,}\-/U',$o[$i])) {
              
//echo "Offset #".$i." matches: ".$o[$i].PHP_EOL;
      
}
}
$rank['preg_match'] = (microtime(true) - $now);
###################################################################
$later = microtime(true);
for(
$i=0;$i<count($o);$i++) {
        if(
substr($o[$i],0,4) == "0000") {
               
//echo "Offset #".$i." matches: ".$o[$i].PHP_EOL;
       
}
}
$rank['substr'] = (microtime(true) - $later);
###################################################################
$after = microtime(true);
for(
$i=0;$i<count($o);$i++) {
        if(
strpos($o[$i], '0000') === 0) {
               
//echo "Offset #".$i." matches: ".$o[$i].PHP_EOL;
       
}
}
$rank['strpos'] = (microtime(true) - $after);
###################################################################
asort($rank);
print_r($rank);
?>

array of 10,000
Array
(
    [strpos] => 0.00766682624817
    [substr] => 0.0116670131683
    [preg_match] => 0.0124950408936
)

array of 100,000
Array
(
    [strpos] => 0.0817799568176
    [substr] => 0.120522975922
    [preg_match] => 0.125612974167
)

array of 1,000,000
Array
(
    [strpos] => 0.805890083313
    [substr] => 1.19799995422
    [preg_match] => 1.25615906715
)

I ran out of memory with more than 1M array elements.
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-1
jaimthorn at yahoo dot com
13 years ago
A complete set of strn*pos functions that look for the nth occurrence of the needle in the haystack. I prefer this implementation of strnpos because it doesn't give visible warnings when supplied with a needle of length 0 (which is, admittedly, non-standard behavior).  Based on a version I [originally posted on 05-MAR-2010]; this new version conforms more to the semantics of strpos.

<?php

/**
*  This function implements all the strn*pos functions, which return the $nth occurrence of $needle
*  in $haystack, or false if it doesn't exist / when illegal parameters have been supplied.
*
*  @param  string  $haystack       the string to search in.
*  @param  MIXED   $needle         the string or the ASCII value of the character to search for.
*  @param  integer $nth            the number of the occurrence to look for.
*  @param  integer $offset         the position in $haystack to start looking for $needle.
*  @param  bool    $insensitive    should the function be case insensitive?
*  @param  bool    $reverse        should the function work its way backwards in the haystack?
*  @return MIXED   integer         either the position of the $nth occurrence of $needle in $haystack,
*               or boolean         false if it can't be found.
*/
function strnripos_generic( $haystack, $needle, $nth, $offset, $insensitive, $reverse )
{
   
//  If needle is not a string, it is converted to an integer and applied as the ordinal value of a character.
   
if( ! is_string( $needle ) ) {
       
$needle = chr( (int) $needle );
    }

   
//  Are the supplied values valid / reasonable?
   
$len = strlen( $needle );
    if(
1 > $nth || 0 === $len ) {
        return
false;
    }

    if(
$insensitive ) {
       
$haystack = strtolower( $haystack );
       
$needle   = strtolower( $needle   );
    }

    if(
$reverse ) {
       
$haystack = strrev( $haystack );
       
$needle   = strrev( $needle   );
    }

   
//  $offset is incremented in the call to strpos, so make sure that the first
    //  call starts at the right position by initially decreasing $offset by $len.
   
$offset -= $len;
    do
    {
       
$offset = strpos( $haystack, $needle, $offset + $len );
    } while( --
$nth  && false !== $offset );

    return
false === $offset || ! $reverse ? $offset : strlen( $haystack ) - $offset;
}

/**
*  @see    strnripos_generic
*/
function strnpos( $haystack, $needle, $nth, $offset = 0 )
{
    return
strnripos_generic( $haystack, $needle, $nth, $offset, false, false );
}

/**
*  @see    strnripos_generic
*/
function strnipos( $haystack, $needle, $nth, $offset = 0 )
{
    return
strnripos_generic( $haystack, $needle, $nth, $offset, true, false );
}

/**
*  @see    strnripos_generic
*/
function strnrpos( $haystack, $needle, $nth, $offset = 0 )
{
    return
strnripos_generic( $haystack, $needle, $nth, $offset, false, true );
}

/**
*  @see    strnripos_generic
*/
function strnripos( $haystack, $needle, $nth, $offset = 0 )
{
    return
strnripos_generic( $haystack, $needle, $nth, $offset, true, true );
}

$haystack = 'Dit is een HoTtentotTentenTentenToonstellingTest!';

echo
strnpos  ( $haystack, 't', 5 ), ' === ', strnpos  ( $haystack, 116, 5 ), PHP_EOL;
echo
strnipos ( $haystack, 't', 5 ), ' === ', strnipos ( $haystack, 116, 5 ), PHP_EOL;
echo
strnrpos ( $haystack, 't', 5 ), ' === ', strnrpos ( $haystack, 116, 5 ), PHP_EOL;
echo
strnripos( $haystack, 't', 5 ), ' === ', strnripos( $haystack, 116, 5 ), PHP_EOL;
echo
PHP_EOL;
echo
strnpos  ( $haystack, 'T', 5 ), ' === ', strnpos  ( $haystack84, 5 ), PHP_EOL;
echo
strnipos ( $haystack, 'T', 5 ), ' === ', strnipos ( $haystack84, 5 ), PHP_EOL;
echo
strnrpos ( $haystack, 'T', 5 ), ' === ', strnrpos ( $haystack84, 5 ), PHP_EOL;
echo
strnripos( $haystack, 'T', 5 ), ' === ', strnripos( $haystack84, 5 ), PHP_EOL;
?>
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-1
KimKha
14 years ago
The following function use to redirect to URL correctly if the URL have "http://" or "https://", or to relative URL on your site.

<?php
function forward($url = NULL){
   
$root = "http://example.com/mydir/";
   
    if(
$url == NULL) // Go to homepage
       
$url = $root;
    else {
       
$pos = strpos($url, "http://");
        if (
$pos === false)
           
$pos = strpos($url, "https://");
       
        if (
$pos === false || $pos > 0) // Go to relative URL on your site
           
$url = $root . $url;
    }
   
   
header('Location:'.$url);   
}
?>
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-1
vbracco at gmail dot com
15 years ago
This function find position of first occurrence of any $needles in a string $haystack.
Return the position as an integer. If needles is not found, strposa() will return boolean  FALSE.

<?php
function strposa($haystack ,$needles=array(),$offset=0){
   
$chr = array();
    foreach(
$needles as $needle){
       
$chr[] = strpos($haystack,$needle,$offset);
    }
    if(empty(
$chr)) return false;
    return
min($chr);
}

$string = "This is my string, very simple.";

echo
strposa($string,array(".",","," ")); // 2
echo strposa($string,array("T")); // 0
echo strposa($string,array("Q","W")); // false
?>
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