PHP String Search

Have you ever lost your keys and spent hours searching for them? 😫 Well, searching for text in PHP strings is way easier than that! 🥳
PHP provides built-in functions to find specific words or characters inside a string. Let’s explore them! 🚀

🔹 Finding a Substring with strpos()

The strpos() function finds the position of the first occurrence of a substring in a string. If the substring exists, it returns the position (starting from 0). If not, it returns false.

<?php
$text = "I love PHP programming!";
$search = "PHP";

$position = strpos($text, $search);

if ($position !== false) {
    echo "'$search' found at position $position!";
} else {
    echo "'$search' not found!";
}
?>

Try It Now

Output: 'PHP' found at position 7!

📝 Example 1: Case Sensitivity in strpos()

strpos() is case-sensitive! So, searching for “php” (lowercase) won’t match “PHP” (uppercase).

<?php
$text = "I love PHP programming!";
$search = "php"; // lowercase

$position = strpos($text, $search);

if ($position !== false) {
    echo "'$search' found at position $position!";
} else {
    echo "'$search' not found!";
}
?>

Try It Now

Output: 'php' not found!

Solution: Use stripos() instead (it’s case-insensitive).

🔹 Case-Insensitive Search with stripos()

If you don’t care about uppercase or lowercase, use stripos() instead.

<?php
$text = "I love PHP programming!";
$search = "php"; // lowercase

$position = stripos($text, $search);

if ($position !== false) {
    echo "'$search' found at position $position!";
} else {
    echo "'$search' not found!";
}
?>

Try It Now

Output: 'php' found at position 7!

🔹 Checking If a String Contains a Word with str_contains() (PHP 8+)

If you only want a yes or no answer, use str_contains() (introduced in PHP 8).

<?php
$text = "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.";
$word = "fox";

if (str_contains($text, $word)) {
    echo "Yes! '$word' is in the sentence!";
} else {
    echo "Nope, '$word' is missing!";
}
?>

Try It Now

Output: Yes! 'fox' is in the sentence!

🔹 Checking If a String Starts or Ends with a Word (PHP 8+)

PHP 8 also introduced str_starts_with() and str_ends_with().
Let’s check if a sentence starts with “Hello” or ends with “world!”

<?php
$text = "Hello, PHP world!";

if (str_starts_with($text, "Hello")) {
    echo "Yes! It starts with 'Hello'!";
} else {
    echo "No, it doesn't start with 'Hello'.";
}

echo "<br>"; // Line break

if (str_ends_with($text, "world!")) {
    echo "Yes! It ends with 'world!'";
} else {
    echo "No, it doesn't end with 'world!'";
}
?>

Try It Now

Output:

Yes! It starts with 'Hello'!
Yes! It ends with 'world!'

🎯 Key Takeaways

  • strpos() → Finds the position of a substring (case-sensitive).
  • stripos() → Finds the position (case-insensitive).
  • str_contains() → Checks if a string contains a word (PHP 8+).
  • str_starts_with() → Checks if a string starts with a word (PHP 8+).
  • str_ends_with() → Checks if a string ends with a word (PHP 8+).

📝 Practice Time!

Try searching for words in your own sentences! Maybe check if a string contains “pizza” because, let’s be honest, that’s all we really care about! 🍕😂