What is the stristr() method in PHP?

Overview

The stristr() method is similar to the strstr() function. You can refer to this shot to learn more about the strstr() function. In this shot, we take a look at the stritr() function.

The stritr() function compares two strings and returns all of the first string starting at the point where the second string was found in it. This comparison is case insensitive.

Syntax

Here is the syntax for the stritr() method:

stristr($haystack,$needle,$before_needle)

Parameter

  • ＄haystack: This is the string that will be searched and whose member characters will be compared with ＄needle.

  • ＄needle: This the value to be searched for in ＄haystack.

  • ＄before_needle: This is a true or false flag. It will determine if the value before ＄needle will be returned instead of the part from the point where the needle is found in ＄haystack. The default value is false.

Return Value

If the ＄before_value parameter is not provided, a substring of ＄haystack including ＄needle, starting from the position of ＄needle in ＄haystack will be returned. Where ＄before_value is not provided, all of the string before ＄needle will be returned.

For the best output as intended, ＄haystack has to be a string value. This is because if an integer is provided, it will be converted to a string which will not give the best result.

Example

<?php
  $haystack = 'The love of this scrable game';
  echo stristr($haystack, 'this') ."\n"; // scrable game
  echo stristr($haystack, 'this', true) ."\n"; // outputsthis
  $string = 'greetings there!';
  if(stristr($string, 'dear') === FALSE) {
    echo '"dear" not found in string';
  }
// outputs: "dear" not found in string
?>

Explanation

Following is the explanation of the code above:

  • Line 3: We declare the ＄haystack variable.
  • Line 4: We use the stristr() function to search for “this” in the ＄haystack. Here, the ＄before_value parameter is not supplied, so the default false is used.
  • Line 5: We use the stristr() function to search for “this” in the ＄haystack. Here, the ＄before_value parameter is supplied as true. Therefore, only the values before ＄this are returned.
  • Line 7: We declare the greeting variable.
  • Line 8: We use an if statement to check if a false value is output by the stristr function.

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