Common PHP String Manipulation Functions and Examples

PHP string functions are a core part of the language, and this guide covers the most commonly used methods for extracting substrings.

1. substr() extracts a portion of a string based on start position and length.

";
echo substr($str,2,4); // rave
echo "
";
echo substr($str,-3); // vel
?>

The outputs are avel , rave , and vel respectively.

2. mb_substr() handles multibyte characters such as Chinese, requiring the php_mbstring extension.

Output: 内 .

To obtain the part of a string before a certain number of characters, calculate the total length and subtract the desired offset:

Result: 文 .

3. Using stripos() with substr() to locate a character and extract substrings to the left or right of it.

";
echo substr("abcde", 0, stripos("abcde", "c")); // ab
?>

Outputs are cde and ab .

4. Direct character access by index using array syntax.

Output: a .