(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
strstr — Find the first occurrence of a string
Returns part of haystack
string starting from and including the first
occurrence of needle
to the end of
haystack
.
Note:
This function is case-sensitive. For case-insensitive searches, use stristr() .
Note:
If it is only required to determine if a particular
needle
occurs withinhaystack
, the faster and less memory intensive str_contains() function should be used instead.
haystack
The input string.
needle
The string to search for.
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.
before_needle
If true
, strstr() returns
the part of the haystack
before the first
occurrence of the needle
(excluding the needle).
Returns the portion of string, or false
if needle
is not found.
Version | Description |
---|---|
8.0.0 |
needle now accepts an empty string.
|
8.0.0 |
Passing an int as needle is no longer supported.
|
7.3.0 |
Passing an int as needle has been deprecated.
|
Example #1 strstr() example
<?php
$email = 'name@example.com';
$domain = strstr($email, '@');
echo $domain, PHP_EOL; // prints @example.com
$user = strstr($email, '@', true);
echo $user, PHP_EOL; // prints name
?>
strstr() is not a way to avoid type-checking with strpos().
If $needle is the last character in $haystack, and testing $needle as a boolean by itself would evaluate to false, then testing strstr() as a boolean will evaluate to false (because, if successful, strstr() returns the first occurrence of $needle along with the rest of $haystack).
<?php
findZero('01234'); // found a zero
findZero('43210'); // did not find a zero
findZero('0'); // did not find a zero
findZero('00'); // found a zero
findZero('000'); // found a zero
findZero('10'); // did not find a zero
findZero('100'); // found a zero
function findZero($numberString) {
if (strstr($numberString, '0')) {
echo 'found a zero';
} else {
echo 'did not find a zero';
}
}
?>
Also, strstr() is far more memory-intensive than strpos(), especially with longer strings as your $haystack, so if you are not interested in the substring that strstr() returns, you shouldn't be using it anyway.
There is no PHP function just to check only _if_ $needle occurs in $haystack; strpos() tells you if it _doesn't_ by returning false, but, if it does occur, it tells you _where_ it occurs as an integer, which is 0 (zero) if $needle is the first part of $haystack, which is why testing if (strpos($needle, $haystack)===false) is the only way to know for sure if $needle is not part of $haystack.
My advice is to start loving type checking immediately, and to familiarize yourself with the return value of the functions you are using.
Cheers.
Lookout for logic inversion in old code!
In PHP 8, if the needle is an empty string, this function will return 0 (not false), implying the first character of the string matches the needle. Before PHP 8, it would return false when the needle is an empty string.
There other string functions that are affected by similar issues in PHP 8: strpos(), strrpos(), stripos(), strripos(), strchr(), strrchr(), stristr(), and this function, strstr()
If you are checking if the return value === false then you will be misled by this new behaviour. You also need to check if the needle was an empty string. Basically, something like this:
<?php
$result = $needle ? strstr($haystack, $needle) : false;
?>
For those in need of the last occurrence of a string:
<?php
function strrstr($h, $n, $before = false) {
$rpos = strrpos($h, $n);
if($rpos === false) return false;
if($before == false) return substr($h, $rpos);
else return substr($h, 0, $rpos);
}
?>
Been using this for years:
<?php
/**
*
* @author : Dennis T Kaplan
*
* @version : 1.0
* Date : June 17, 2007
* Function : reverse strstr()
* Purpose : Returns part of haystack string from start to the first occurrence of needle
* $haystack = 'this/that/whatever';
* $result = rstrstr($haystack, '/')
* $result == this
*
* @access public
* @param string $haystack, string $needle
* @return string
**/
function rstrstr($haystack,$needle)
{
return substr($haystack, 0,strpos($haystack, $needle));
}
?>
You could change it to:
rstrstr ( string $haystack , mixed $needle [, int $start] )
<?php
function rstrstr($haystack,$needle, $start=0)
{
return substr($haystack, $start,strpos($haystack, $needle));
}
?>
If you want to emulate strstr's new before_needle parameter pre 5.3 strtok is faster than using strpos to find the needle and cutting with substr. The amount of difference varies with string size but strtok is always faster.
For the needle_before (first occurance) parameter when using PHP 5.x or less, try:
<?php
$haystack = 'php-homepage-20071125.png';
$needle = '-';
$result = substr($haystack, 0, strpos($haystack, $needle)); // $result = php
?>
If you are only trying to detect the presence of $needle within $haystack, consider using strpos() instead. It is faster/more efficient for that specific purpose.
> root at mantoru dot de
PHP makes this easy for you. When working with domain portion of email addresses, simply pass the return of strstr() to substr() and start at 1:
substr(strstr($haystack, '@'), 1);