String Functions

1
 Objectives

• Manipulate strings
• Parse strings
• Compare strings
• Handle form submissions

2
 Constructing Text Strings
• A text string contains zero or more characters
surrounded by double or single quotation marks
• Text strings can be used as literal values or
assigned to a variable
echo "<PHP literal text string</p>";
$StringVariable = "<p>PHP literal text
string</p>";
echo $StringVariable;
• A string must begin and end with a matching
quotation mark (single or double)
3
 Constructing Text Strings
(continued)
• To include a quoted string within a literal string
surrounded by double quotation marks, you
surround the quoted string with single quotation
marks
• To include a quoted string within a literal string
surrounded by single quotation marks, you
surround the quoted string with double quotation
marks

4
 Constructing Text Strings
(continued)
$LatinQuote = '<p>"Et tu, Brute!"</p>';
echo $LatinQuote;

Output of a text string containing double quotation marks

5
 Working with String Operators
In PHP, use two operators to combine strings:
• Concatenation operator (.) combines two
strings and assigns the new value to a variable
$City = "Paris";
$Country = "France";
$Destination = <p>“ . $City . " is in "
. $Country . ".</p>";
echo $Destination;

6
 Working with String Operators
(continued)
• You can also combine strings using the
concatenation assignment operator (.=)
$Destination = "<p>Paris";
$Destination .= "is in France.</p>";
echo $Destination;

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 Adding Escape Characters and
Sequences
• An escape character tells the compiler or
interpreter that the character that follows it has a
special purpose
• In PHP, the escape character is the backslash (\)
echo '<p>This code\'s going to work</p>';
• Do not add a backslash before an apostrophe
if you surround the text string with double
quotation marks
echo "<p>This code's going to work.</p>";
8
 Adding Escape Characters and
Sequences (continued)
• The escape character combined with one or
more other characters is an escape sequence

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 Adding Escape Characters and
Sequences (continued)
$Speaker = "Julius Caesar";
echo "<p>\"Et tu, Brute!\" exclaimed
$Speaker.</p>";

Output of literal text containing double quotation escape sequences

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Simple and Complex String Syntax
• Simple string syntax uses the value of a
variable within a string by including the variable
name inside a text string with double quotation
marks
$Vegetable = "broccoli";
echo "<p>Do you have any $Vegetable?</p>";
• When variables are placed within curly braces
inside of a string, it is called complex string
syntax
$Vegetable = "carrot";
echo "<p>Do you have any {$Vegetable}s?</p>";

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 Working with a Single String
• PHP provides a number of functions for
analyzing, altering, and parsing text strings
including:
– Counting characters and words
– Transposing, converting, and changing the case
of text within a string

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 Counting Characters and Words
in a String
• The most commonly used string counting
function is the strlen() function, which returns
the total number of characters in a string
• Escape sequences, such as \n, are counted as
one character

$BookTitle = "The Cask of Amontillado";

echo "<p>The book title contains " .
strlen($BookTitle) . " characters.</p>";

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 Counting Characters and Words
in a String (continued)
• The str_word_count() function returns the
number of words in a string
• Pass the str_word_count() function a literal
string or the name of a string variable whose
words you want to count
$BookTitle = "The Cask of Amontillado";
echo "<p>The book title contains " .
str_word_count($BookTitle). " words.</p>";

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 Modifying the Case of a String
• PHP provides several functions to manipulate
the case of a string
– The strtoupper()function converts all letters
in a string to uppercase
– The strtolower()function converts all letters
in a string to lowercase
– The ucfirst()function ensures that the first
character of a word is uppercase
– The lcfirst()function ensures that the first
character of a word is lowercase

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 Modifying the Case of a String
(continued)
• Functions to manipulate the case of a string:
– The ucwords()function changes the first
character of each word
• Use the strtolower()function on a string
before using the ucfirst()and ucwords() to
ensure that the remaining characters in a string are
in lowercase
• Use the strtoupper()function on a string
before using the ucfirst() and ucwords() to
ensure that the remaining characters in a string are
in uppercase

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 Encoding and Decoding a String
• PHP has several built-in functions to use with
Web pages:
• Some characters in HTML have a special
meaning and must be encoded using HTML
entities in order to preserve that meaning
– The htmlspecialchars()function converts
special characters to HTML entities
– The html_specialcharacters_decode()
function converts HTML character entities into
their equivalent characters

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 Encoding and Decoding a String
(continued)
• The characters that are converted with the
htmlspecialchars()function are:
– '&' (ampersand) becomes '&amp;'
– '"' (double quote) becomes '&quot;' when
ENT_NOQUOTES is disabled.
– ''' (single quote) becomes '&#039;' only when
ENT_QUOTES is enabled.
– '<' (less than) becomes '&lt;'
– '>' (greater than) becomes '&gt;'
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 Encoding and Decoding a String
(continued)
• If ENT_QUOTES is enabled in the PHP
configuration, both single and double quotes are
converted
• If ENT_QUOTES is disabled in the PHP
configuration, neither single nor double quotes
are converted

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 Encoding and Decoding a String
(continued)
• The md5()function uses a strong encryption
algorithm (called the Message-Digest
Algorithm) to create a one-way hash
– A one-way hash is a fixed-length string
based on the entered text, from which it is
nearly impossible to determine the original
text
– The md5() function does not have an
equivalent decode function, which makes it a
useful function for storing passwords in a
database
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Other Ways to Manipulate a String
• PHP provides three functions that remove
leading or trailing spaces in a string

– The trim()function will strip (remove) leading or

trailing spaces in a string

– The ltrim() function removes only the leading

spaces

– The rtrim() function removes only the trailing

spaces
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 substr() Function
• The substr()function returns part of a string
based on the values of the start and length
parameters
• The syntax for the substr() function is:
substr(string, start, optional length);
• A positive number in the start parameter indicates
how many character to skip at the beginning of the
string
• A negative number in the start parameter
indicates how many characters to count in from the
end of the string
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 substr() Function
• To extract characters from the beginning or
middle of a string, combine the substr()
function with other functions
• You pass to the substr() function a text string
along with the starting and ending positions of
the substring you want to extract
$Email = "[email protected]";
$NameEnd = strpos($Email, "@");
echo "<p>The name portion of the e-mail address is '“ .
substr($Email, 0, $NameEnd) . "'.</p>";

The name portion of the e-mail address is ‘president’

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Other Ways to Manipulate a String
(continued)
• A positive value in the length parameter
determines how many characters to return
• A negative value in the length parameter skip
that many characters at the end of the string and
returns the middle portion
• If the length is omitted or is greater than the
remaining length of the string, the entire
remainder of the string is returned

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Other Ways to Manipulate a String
(continued)
$ExampleString = "woodworking project";
echo substr($ExampleString,4) . "<br />\n";
echo substr($ExampleString,4,7) . "<br />\n";
echo substr($ExampleString,0,8) . "<br />\n";
echo substr($ExampleString,-7) . "<br />\n";
echo substr($ExampleString,-12,4) . "<br />\n";

Some examples using the substr() function

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 Working with Multiple Strings
• Parsing is the act of dividing a string into logical
component substrings or tokens
• When programming, parsing refers to the
extraction of information from string literals
and variables

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Finding and Extracting Characters
and Substrings

• There are two types of string search and

extraction functions:
– Functions that return a numeric position in a
text string
– Functions that return a character or substring
• Both functions return a value of FALSE if
the search string is not found

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 strpos() Function
• The strpos() function performs a case-
sensitive search and returns the position of the
first occurrence of one string in another string
• Pass two arguments to the strpos() function:
– The first argument is the string you want to search
– The second argument contains the characters for
which you want to search
• If the search string is not found, the strpos()
function returns a Boolean value of FALSE

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 strpos() Function
$Email = “[email protected]";
echo strpos($Email, ‘@’); // returns 9

$Email = “[email protected]";
echo strpos($Email, ‘p’); // returns 0

$Email = “[email protected]";
if (strpos($Email, ‘@’) !== FALSE)
echo “Contains @ sign”;
else
echo “Doesn’t contain @ sign”;
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 strchr() and strrchr()
Functions
• Pass to the strchr() and the strrchr()
functions the string and the character for which
you want to search
• Both functions return a substring from the
specified characters to the end of the string
• strchr() function starts searching at the
beginning of a string
• strrchr() function starts searching at the
end of a string

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 strchr() and strrchr()
Functions
$Email = “[email protected]";
echo “The domain is “ . strchr($Email, ‘.’);
The domain is .gov

$Email = “[email protected]";
echo “The domain is “ . strrchr($Email, ‘.’);
The domain is .gov

Why do strchr and strrchr generate the same

output in this example?

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 str_replace() and
str_ireplace() Functions
• The str_replace() and str_ireplace()
functions both accept three arguments:
– The string you want to search for
– A replacement string
– The string in which you want to replace characters
$Email = "[email protected]";
$NewEmail = str_replace("president", "vice.president", $Email);
echo $NewEmail; // prints '[email protected]'

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Dividing Strings into Smaller Pieces
• Use the strtok() function to break a string into
smaller strings, called tokens
• The syntax for the strtok() function is:
$variable = strtok(string, separators);
• The strtok() function returns the entire string
if:
– An empty string is specified as the second argument
of the strtok() function
– The string does not contain any of the separators
specified
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 strtok() Function
$Presidents = " George Washington;John Thomas Jefferson;James
Madison;James Monroe";
$President = strtok($Presidents, ";");
while ($President != NULL) {
echo "$President<br />";
$President = strtok(";");
}

Figure 3-15 Output of a script that uses the strtok() function

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 strtok() Function (continued)
$Presidents = " George Washington;John Adams;Thomas
Jefferson;James Madison;James Monroe";
$President = strtok($Presidents, "; ");
while ($President != NULL) {
echo "$President<br />";
$President = strtok("; ");
}

Output of a script
with a strtok() function
that uses two separators

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 Converting between Strings and
Arrays
• The str_split() and explode() functions
split a string into an indexed array
• The str_split() function splits each
character in a string into an array element using
the syntax:
$array = str_split(string[, length]);
• The length argument represents the number
of characters you want assigned to each array
element

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 Converting between Strings and
Arrays (continued)
• The explode() function splits a string into an
indexed array at a specified separator
• The syntax for the explode() function is:
$array = explode(separators, string);
• The order of the arguments for the explode()
function is the reverse of the arguments for the
strtok() function

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 Converting between Strings and
Arrays (continued)
$Presidents = "George Washington;JohnAdams;
Thomas Jefferson;James Madison;James Monroe";
$PresidentArray = explode(";", $Presidents);
foreach ($PresidentArray as $President) {
echo "$President<br />";
}
• If the string does not contain the specified
separators, the entire string is assigned to the
first element of the array

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 explode() Function
• Does not separate a string at each character
that is included in the separator argument
• Evaluates the characters in the separator
argument as a substring
• If you pass to the explode()function an empty
string as the separator argument, the function
returns a Boolean value of FALSE

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 implode() Function
• The implode()function combines an array’s
elements into a single string, separated by
specified characters
• The syntax is:
$variable = implode(separators, array);

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 implode() Function (continued)
$PresidentsArray = array("George Washington", “John Adams",
“Thomas Jefferson", “James Madison", “James Monroe");
$Presidents = implode(", ", $PresidentsArray);
echo $Presidents;

Output of a string created with the implode() function

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 Comparing Strings
• Comparison operators compare individual
characters by their position in the American
Standard Code for Information Interchange
(ASCII), which are numeric representations of
English characters
$FirstLetter = "A";
$SecondLetter = "B";
if ($SecondLetter > $FirstLetter)
echo "<p>The second letter is higher in the alphabet
than the first letter.</p>";
else
echo "<p>The second letter is lower in the alphabet than
The first letter.</p>";
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 Comparing Strings (continued)

• American Standard Code for Information

Interchange (ASCII) values range from 0 to 255
• Lowercase letters are represented by the values
97 (“a”) to 122 (“z”)
• Uppercase letters are represented by the values
65 (“A”) to 90 (“Z”)

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 String Comparison Functions
• The strcasecmp() function performs a case-
insensitive comparison of strings
• The strcmp() function performs a case-
sensitive comparison of strings
• Both functions accept two arguments
representing the strings you want to compare
• Most string comparison functions compare
strings based on their ASCII values

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 Determining the Similarity of
Two Strings
• The similar_text() and levenshtein()
functions are used to determine the similarity
between two strings
• The similar_text() function returns the
number of characters that two strings have in
common
• The levenshtein() function returns the
number of characters you need to change for
two strings to be the same

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 Determining the Similarity of
Two Strings (continued)
• Both functions accept two string arguments
representing the values you want to compare

$FirstName = "Don";
$SecondName = "Dan";
echo "<p>The names \"$FirstName\“ and \"$SecondName\“ have “ .
similar_text($FirstName, $SecondName) . “ characters in
common.</p>";
echo "<p>You must change “ . levenshtein($FirstName, $SecondName)
. “ character(s) to make the names \"$FirstName\“ and
\"$SecondName\“ the same.</p>";

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 Determining the Similarity of
Two Strings (continued)

Figure 3-20 Output of a script with the similar_text()

and levenshtein() functions

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 Handling Form Submissions
• A query string is a set of name=value pairs
appended to a target URL
• Form data is submitted in name=value pairs,
based on the name and value attributes of each
element
• A question mark (?) and a query string are
automatically appended to the URL of a server-
side script for any forms that are submitted with
the GET method

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 Handling Form Submissions
(continued)
• Each name=value pair within the query string is
separated with ampersands (&)

<form method="get“ action="ProcessOrder.php">

<input type="text“ name="favorite_books“ value="technical“ />
<input type="text“ name="favorite_author“ value="Gosselin“ />
</form>

ProcessOrder.php?favorite_books=technical&favorite_author=Gosselin

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 Validating Submitted Data
• Use the isset() or empty() functions to
ensure that a variable contains a value
• Use the is_numeric() function to test whether
a variable contains a numeric string

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 Determining if Form Variables
Contain Values
• The isset() function determines whether a
variable has been declared and initialized (or
“set”)
• The empty() function determines whether a
variable is empty
• Pass to both functions the name of the variable
you want to check

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 Testing if Form Variables Contain
Numeric Values
if (isset($_GET['height']) && isset($_GET['weight'])) {
if (is_numeric($_GET['weight']) && is_numeric($_GET['height'])) {
$BodyMass = $_GET['weight'] / ($_GET['height']
* $_GET['height']) * 703;
printf("<p>Your body mass index is %d.</p>",
$BodyMass);
}
else
echo "<p>You must enter numeric values!</p>";
}

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 Summary

• The concatenation operator (.) and the

concatenation assignment operator (.=) can be
used to combine two strings
• An escape character tells the compiler or
interpreter that the character following the
escape character has a special purpose
• The most commonly used string counting
function is the strlen() function, which returns
the total number of characters in a string

53
 Summary (continued)

• The str_word_count()function returns the

number of words in a string
• The strtoupper(), strtolower(),
ucfirst(), lcfirst(), and ucwords()
functions all change the case of characters in the
string
• The substr() function returns the specified
portion of a string

54
 Summary (continued)

• Use the str_replace(), str_ireplace(),

and substr_replace() functions to replace
text in strings
• The strtok() function breaks a string into
smaller strings, called tokens
• The str_split() and explode() functions
split a string into an indexed array
• The implode() function combines an array’s
elements into a single string, separated by
specified characters

55
 Summary (continued)

• The strcasecmp() function performs a case-

insensitive comparison of strings, whereas the
strcmp() function performs a case-sensitive
comparison of strings
• The similar_text() and levenshtein()
functions are used to determine the similarity of
two strings

56