PHP 7.0.6 Released

    strstr

    (PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

    strstr — Find the first occurrence of a string

    Description

    string strstr ( string $haystack , mixed $needle [, bool $before_needle = false ] )

    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 you only want to determine if a particular needle occurs within haystack, use the faster and less memory intensive function strpos() instead.

    Parameters

    haystack

    The input string.

    needle

    If needle is not a string, it is converted to an integer and applied as the ordinal value of a character.

    before_needle

    If TRUE, strstr() returns the part of the haystack before the first occurrence of the needle (excluding the needle).

    Return Values

    Returns the portion of string, or FALSE if needle is not found.

    Changelog

    Version Description
    5.3.0 Added the optional parameter before_needle.
    4.3.0 strstr() was made binary safe.

    Examples

    Example #1 strstr() example

    <?php
    $email      = 'name@example.com';
    $domain = strstr($email, '@');
    echo     $domain; // prints @example.com

    $user = strstr($email, '@', true); // As of PHP 5.3.0
    echo $user; // prints name
    ?>

    See Also

    • stristr() - Case-insensitive strstr
    • strrchr() - Find the last occurrence of a character in a string
    • strpos() - Find the position of the first occurrence of a substring in a string
    • strpbrk() - Search a string for any of a set of characters
    • preg_match() - Perform a regular expression match

    User Contributed Notes

    gruessle at gmail dot com
    5 years ago
    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));
        }

    ?>
    laszlo dot heredy at gmail dot com
    2 years ago
    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.
    brett dot jr dot alton at gmail dot com
    8 years ago
    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
    ?>
    w3b_monk3y at yahoo dot com
    7 years ago
    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.
    xslidian at lidian dot info
    3 years ago
    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);
    }
    ?>
    trent dot renshaw at objectst dot com dot au
    10 months ago
    > 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);
    peter at olds dot co
    4 years ago
    I was in need of getting the first and last part of a string pre 5.3 so I wrote this:

    <?php
    $fir     = $first = explode( " ", $cmd[1] );
    unset(     $fir[0] );
    $end = ltrim( implode( " ", $fir ) );
    ?>

    I needed it split with a " " but can obviously change for your needs. But with this format your output for the string:

    "PHP is the best programming language out there"

    Will give you the following results:

    <?php
    $first    [0] // PHP
    $end // is the best programming language out there
    ?>

    Works really well :)
    root at mantoru dot de
    8 years ago
    Please note that $needle is included in the return string, as shown in the example above. This ist not always desired behavior, _especially_ in the mentioned example. Use this if you want everything AFTER $needle.

    <?php
    function strstr_after($haystack, $needle, $case_insensitive = false) {
            $strpos = ($case_insensitive) ? 'stripos' : 'strpos';
            $pos = $strpos($haystack, $needle);
        if (    is_int($pos)) {
            return     substr($haystack, $pos + strlen($needle));
        }
            // Most likely false or null
            return $pos;
    }

    // Example
    $email = 'name@example.com';
    $domain = strstr_after($email, '@');
    echo     $domain; // prints example.com
    ?>
    gigaman2003 at halfempty dot co dot uk
    9 years ago
    Often you will need to find all occurrences of a string (for security escapes and such)

    So I wrote this function to return an array with the locations of all the occurrences. Almost like an advanced strstr.

    <?php
    function findall($needle, $haystack)
    {
            //Setting up
            $buffer=''; //We will use a 'frameshift' buffer for this search
            $pos=0; //Pointer
            $end = strlen($haystack); //The end of the string
            $getchar=''; //The next character in the string
            $needlelen=strlen($needle); //The length of the needle to find (speeds up searching)
            $found = array(); //The array we will store results in
       
            while($pos<$end)//Scan file
            {
                $getchar = substr($haystack,$pos,1); //Grab next character from pointer
                if($getchar!="\n" || buffer<$needlelen) //If we fetched a line break, or the buffer is still smaller than the needle, ignore and grab next character
                {
                    $buffer = $buffer . $getchar; //Build frameshift buffer
                    if(strlen($buffer)>$needlelen) //If the buffer is longer than the needle
                    {
                        $buffer = substr($buffer,-$needlelen);//Truncunate backwards to needle length (backwards so that the frame 'moves')
                    }
                if(    $buffer==$needle) //If the buffer matches the needle
                    {
                        $found[]=$pos-$needlelen+1; //Add the location of the needle to the array. Adding one fixes the offset.
                    }
            }
                $pos++; //Increment the pointer
            }
        if(    array_key_exists(0,$found)) //Check for an empty array
            {
            return     $found; //Return the array of located positions
            }
        else
        {
            return     false; //Or if no instances were found return false
            }
    }
    ?>

    Haven't had the chance to speed test it, but many optimizations should be possible. It just works enough for me. Hope it saves someone a lot of time.
    prafe at prafesplace dot com
    8 years ago
    If you want to use the $before_needle parameter that's only in PHP 5.3.0, I found a way to use it in lower versions.

    The code is a bit hefty, but it works. It also has added $include_needle and $case_sensitive.

    <?php
    // ==== I don't guarantee this is faster than the PHP 6 before needle, ====
    // ====  but it works for PHP below 6 atleast. ====
    // ==== IT ALSO HAS INCLUDE NEEDLE BOOLEAN.. ====
    function strstrbi($haystack,$needle,$before_needle,
    $include_needle,$case_sensitive)
    {
          $strstr = ($case_sensitive) ? 'strstr' : 'stristr';
      if(    $before_needle!=true && $before_needle!=false && isset($before_needle)){
          die(    'PHP: Error in function '.chr(39).'$strstrbi'. chr(39).' :  parameter '. chr(39).'$before_needle'.chr(39).' is not a supplied as a boolean.');
      }     // END BOOLEAN CHECK '$before_needle'

          if($include_needle!=true && $include_needle!=false && isset($include_needle)){
        die(    'PHP: Error in function '.chr(39).'$strstrbi'. chr(39).' : parameter '. chr(39).'$include_needle'.chr(39). ' is not a supplied as a boolean.');
      }     // END BOOLEAN CHECK '$include_needle'

          if($case_sensitive!=true && $case_sensitive!=false && isset($case_sensitive)){
        die(    'PHP: Error in function '.chr(39).'$strstrbi' .chr(39).' : parameter '. chr(39).'$case_sensitive'.chr(39).' is not a supplied as a boolean.');
      }     // END BOOLEAN CHECK '$case_sensitive'

          if(!isset($before_needle)){
            $before_needle=false;
      }

      if(!isset(    $include_needle)){
            $include_needle=true;
      }

      if(!isset(    $case_sensitive)){
            $case_sensitive=false;
      }

      switch(    $before_needle){
        case     true:
          switch(    $include_needle){
            case     true:
                  $temp=strrev($haystack);
                  $ret=strrev(substr($strstr($temp,$needle),0));
              break;
                // END case true : $include_needle
                case false:
                  $temp=strrev($haystack);
                  $ret=strrev(substr($strstr($temp,$needle),1));
              break;
                // END case false : $include_needle
              }
          break;
            // END case true : $before_needle
            case false:
          switch(    $include_needle){
            case     true:
                  $ret=$strstr($haystack,$needle);
              break;
                // END case true: $include_needle
                case false:
                  $ret=substr($strstr($haystack,$needle),1);
              break;
                // END case false: $include_needle
            }
        break;
            // END case false : $before_needle
          }

      if(!empty(    $ret)){
        return     $ret;
      }else{
        return     false;
      }
    }
    // === END FUNCTION 'strstrbi'

    // Example

    $email  = 'user@example.com';
    $domain = strstrbi($email, '@', false, false, false);
    echo     $domain; // prints example.com

    $user = strstrbi($email, '@', true, false, false);
    echo     $user; // prints user
    ?>
    leo dot nard at free dot fr
    10 years ago
    When encoding ASCII strings to HTML size-limited strings, sometimes some HTML special chars were cut.

    For example, when encoding "��" to a string of size 10, you would get: "à&a" => the second character is cut.

    This function will remove any unterminated HTML special characters from the string...

    <?php
    function cut_html($string)
    {
            $a=$string;

        while (    $a = strstr($a, '&'))
        {
            echo     "'".$a."'\n";
                $b=strstr($a, ';');
            if (!    $b)
            {
                echo     "couper...\n";
                    $nb=strlen($a);
                return     substr($string, 0, strlen($string)-$nb);
            }
                $a=substr($a,1,strlen($a)-1);
        }
        return     $string;
    }
    ?>
    php at silisoftware dot com
    13 years ago
    PHP versions before 4.3.0 (tested on 4.2.2 and 4.2.3) return the $haystack from $needle only up to the first null character. So for example:

    <?php
    $string     = strstr("one#two\x00three", "#");
    // PHP 4.2.x:  $string contains "#two"
    // PHP 4.3.0:  $string contains "#two\x00three"
    ?>

    If you're trying to match nulls, you will probably get back an empty string:

    <?php
    $string     = strstr("one#two\x00three", "\x00");
    // PHP 4.2.x:  $string contains ""
    // PHP 4.3.0:  $string contains "\x00three"
    ?>
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