(1)Declarations of Strings in PHP

Strings are a sequence of character that are treated as one unit.Strings in PHP are declared in two
ways:
 Single quoted

 Double quoted

Single Quoted String:

Here the statement present within the single quotes will be displayed as it is without any changes.

Example:

<?php
$string_variable = "name";
$literally = 'My $string_variable is Happy!\n';
print($literally);
?>

Output:

My $string_variable is Happy!\n

Double Quoted String:

Here the statement present within the double quotes will be interpreted and the output of the
program will be displayed.

Example:

<?php
$string_variable = "name";
$literally = “My $string_variable is Happy!\n”;
print($literally);
?>
Output:

My name is Happy!
PHP provides a number of built-in string functions which help in performing several
operations while dealing with string data.

Basic PHP String Functions

In this section, we will discuss a few basic string functions which are most commonly used
in PHP scripts.

1. Getting length of a String

PHP has a predefined function to get the length of a string. Strlen() displays the length of
any string. It is more commonly used in validating input fields where the user is limited to
enter a fixed length of characters.

Syntax

Strlen(string);
Example

<?php

echo strlen(“Welcome to Cloudways”);//will return the length of given string

?>
Output

20
2. Counting of the number of words in a String

Another function which enables display of the number of words in any specific string is
str_word_count(). This function is also useful in validation of input fields.

Syntax

Str_word_count(string)
Example

<?php

echo str_word_count(“Welcome to Cloudways”);//will return the number of words in a string

?>
Output

3
3. Reversing a String

Strrev() is used for reversing a string. You can use this function to get the reverse version
of any string.

Syntax

Strev(string)
Example

<?php

echo strrev(“Welcome to Cloudways”);// will return the string starting from the end
 ?>
Output

syawduolC ot emocleW
4. Finding Text Within a String

Strpos() enables searching particular text within a string. It works simply by matching the
specific text in a string. If found, then it returns the specific position. If not found at all, then
it will return “False”. Strops() is most commonly used in validating input fields like email.

Syntax

Strpos(string,text);
Example

<?php

echo strpos(“Welcome to Cloudways”,”Cloudways”);

?>
Output

11
5. Replacing text within a string

Str_replace() is a built-in function, basically used for replacing specific text within a string.

Syntax

Str_replace(string to be replaced,text,string)
Example

<?php

echo str_replace(“cloudways”, “the programming world”, “Welcome to cloudways”);

?>
Output

Welcome to the programming world

6. Converting lowercase into Title Case

Ucwords() is used to convert first alphabet of every word into uppercase.

Syntax

Ucwords(string)

Example

<?php

echo ucwords(“welcome to the php world”);

?>
Output

Welcome To The Php World

7. Converting a whole string into UPPERCASE

Strtoupper() is used to convert a whole string into uppercase.

Syntax

Strtoupper(string);
Example

<?php

echo strtoupper(“welcome to cloudways”);// It will convert all letters of string into uppercase

?>
Output

WELCOME TO CLOUDWAYS
8. Converting whole String to lowercase

Strtolower() is used to convert a string into lowercase.

Syntax

Strtolower(string)
Example

<?php

echo strtolower(“WELCOME TO CLOUDWAYS”);

?>
Output

welcome to cloudways
9. Repeating a String

PHP provides a built-in function for repeating a string a specific number of times.

Syntax

Str_repeat(string,repeat)
Example

<?php

echo str_repeat(“=”,13);

?>
Output

=============
10. Comparing Strings

You can compare two strings by using strcmp(). It returns output either greater than zero,
less than zero or equal to zero. If string 1 is greater than string 2 then it returns greater
than zero. If string 1 is less than string 2 then it returns less than zero. It returns zero, if the
strings are equal.

Syntax

Strcmp(string1,string2)
Example

<?php
 echo strcmp(“Cloudways”,”CLOUDWAYS”);

echo “<br>”;

echo strcmp(“cloudways”,”cloudways”);//Both the strings are equal

echo “<br>”;

echo strcmp(“Cloudways”,”Hosting”);

echo “<br>”;

echo strcmp(“a”,”b”);//compares alphabetically

echo “<br>”;

echo strcmp(“abb baa”,”abb baa caa”);//compares both strings and returns the result in
terms of number of characters.

?>
Output

-1
 -1

-4
11. Displaying part of String

Through substr() function you can display or extract a string from a particular position.

Syntax

substr(string,start,length)
Example

<?php

echo substr(“Welcome to Cloudways”,6).”<br>”;

echo substr(“Welcome to Cloudways”,0,10).”<br>”;

?>
Output

e to Cloudways

Welcome to

s
12. Removing white spaces from a String

Trim() is dedicated to remove white spaces and predefined characters from a both the
sides of a string.

Syntax

trim(string,charlist)
Example

<?php

$str = “Wordpess Hosting”;

echo $str . “<br>”;

echo trim(“$str”,”Wording”);

?>
Output

Wordpess Hosting

pess Host

(2) php - operators

In all programming languages, operators are used to manipulate or perform operations on variables and
values. You have already seen the string concatenation operator "." in the Echo Lesson and the assignment
operator "=" in pretty much every PHP example so far.

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 There are many operators used in PHP, so we have separated them into the following categories to make
it easier to learn them all.

 Assignment Operators
 Arithmetic Operators
 Comparison Operators
 String Operators
 Combination Arithmetic & Assignment Operators

assignment operators
Assignment operators are used to set a variable equal to a value or set a variable to another variable's
value. Such an assignment of value is done with the "=", or equal character. Example:

 $my_var = 4;
 $another_var = $my_var;

Now both $my_var and $another_var contain the value 4. Assignments can also be used in conjunction
with arithmetic operators.

arithmetic operators
Operator English Example

+ Addition 2+4

- Subtraction 6-2

* Multiplication 5 * 3

/ Division 15 / 3

% Modulus 43 % 10

PHP Code:
$addition = 2 + 4;
$subtraction = 6 - 2;
$multiplication = 5 * 3;
$division = 15 / 3;
$modulus = 5 % 2;
echo "Perform addition: 2 + 4 = ".$addition."<br />";
echo "Perform subtraction: 6 - 2 = ".$subtraction."<br />";
echo "Perform multiplication: 5 * 3 = ".$multiplication."<br />";
echo "Perform division: 15 / 3 = ".$division."<br />";
echo "Perform modulus: 5 % 2 = " . $modulus
. ". Modulus is the remainder after the division operation has been performed.
In this case it was 5 / 2, which has a remainder of 1.";

Display:
Perform addition: 2 + 4 = 6
Perform subtraction: 6 - 2 = 4
Perform multiplication: 5 * 3 = 15
Perform division: 15 / 3 = 5
Perform modulus: 5 % 2 = 1. Modulus is the remainder after the division operation has been
performed. In this case it was 5 / 2, which has a remainder of 1.

comparison operators
Comparisons are used to check the relationship between variables and/or values. If you would like to see a
simple example of a comparison operator in action, check out our If Statement Lesson. Comparison operators
are used inside conditional statements and evaluate to either true or false. Here are the most important
comparison operators of PHP.
Assume: $x = 4 and $y = 5;

Operator English Example Result

== Equal To $x == $y false

!= Not Equal To $x != $y true

< Less Than $x < $y true

> Greater Than $x > $y false

<= Less Than or Equal To $x <= $y true

>= Greater Than or Equal To $x >= $y false

string operators
As we have already seen in the Echo Lesson, the period "." is used to add two strings together, or more
technically, the period is the concatenation operator for strings.

PHP Code:
$a_string = "Hello";
$another_string = " Billy";
$new_string = $a_string . $another_string;
echo $new_string . "!";

Display:
Hello Billy!

combination arithmetic & assignment operators

In programming it is a very common task to have to increment a variable by some fixed amount. The most
common example of this is a counter. Say you want to increment a counter by 1, you would have:

 $counter = $counter + 1;

However, there is a shorthand for doing this.

 $counter += 1;
 This combination assignment/arithmetic operator would accomplish the same task. The downside to this
combination operator is that it reduces code readability to those programmers who are not used to such an
operator. Here are some examples of other common shorthand operators. In general, "+=" and "-=" are the
most widely used combination operators.

Operator English Example Equivalent Operation

+= Plus Equals $x += 2; $x = $x + 2;

-= Minus Equals $x -= 4; $x = $x - 4;

*= Multiply Equals $x *= 3; $x = $x * 3;

/= Divide Equals $x /= 2; $x = $x / 2;

%= Modulo Equals $x %= 5; $x = $x % 5;

.= Concatenate Equals $my_str.="hello"; $my_str = $my_str . "hello";

pre/post-increment & pre/post-decrement

This may seem a bit absurd, but there is even a shorter shorthand for the common task of adding 1 or
subtracting 1 from a variable. To add one to a variable or "increment" use the "++" operator:

 $x++; Which is equivalent to $x += 1; or $x = $x + 1;

To subtract 1 from a variable, or "decrement" use the "--" operator:

 $x--; Which is equivalent to $x -= 1; or $x = $x - 1;

In addition to this "shorterhand" technique, you can specify whether you want to increment before the line
of code is being executed or after the line has executed. Our PHP code below will display the difference.

PHP Code:
$x = 4;
echo "The value of x with post-plusplus = " . $x++;
echo "<br /> The value of x after the post-plusplus is " . $x;
$x = 4;
echo "<br />The value of x with with pre-plusplus = " . ++$x;
echo "<br /> The value of x after the pre-plusplus is " . $x;

Display:
The value of x with post-plusplus = 4
The value of x after the post-plusplus is = 5
The value of x with with pre-plusplus = 5
The value of x after the pre-plusplus is = 5

As you can see the value of $x++ is not reflected in the echoed text because the variable is not
incremented until after the line of code is executed. However, with the pre-increment "++$x" the variable does
reflect the addition immediately.