strstr

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

    strstr — Find the first occurrence of a string

    Description

    strstr(string $haystack, string $needle, bool $before_needle = false): string|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 it is only required to determine if a particular needle occurs within haystack, the faster and less memory intensive str_contains() function should be used instead.

    Parameters

    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).

    Return Values

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

    Changelog

    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.

    Examples

    Example #1 strstr() example

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

    $user = strstr($email, '@', true);
    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

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    User Contributed Notes 8 notes

    up
    45
    laszlo dot heredy at gmail dot com
    11 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.
    up
    11
    Gevorg Melkumyan
    3 years ago
    Don't confuse this function with strtr ) I lost like 1 hour on that
    up
    2
    Julian Egelstaff
    1 year ago
    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;
    ?>
    up
    13
    xslidian at lidian dot info
    11 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);
    }
    ?>
    up
    17
    gruessle at gmail dot com
    13 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));
    }

    ?>
    up
    9
    w3b_monk3y at yahoo dot com
    15 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.
    up
    9
    brett dot jr dot alton at gmail dot com
    17 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
    ?>
    up
    -3
    trent dot renshaw at objectst dot com dot au
    9 years 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);
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