php

Check if string contains a substring using PHP

If you're working with strings in PHP, it's often necessary to check if a string contains a particular substring. For instance, you might want to check if a string contains a URL or an email address.

<?php
    if (strpos("Hello World", "Wor") != false) {
        echo "Substring found";
    } else {
        echo "Substring not found";
    }
?>

Output

Substring found

PHP provides a number of functions that make it easy to check if a string contains a substring. In this article, we'll take a look at a few of these functions and how they can be used to check if a string contains a substring.

Using str_contains() function if you are using PHP 8 or higher version

The str_contains() function is used to check if a string contains a substring. This function is available in PHP 8 or higher version. This function is case-sensitive means it will make an exact match with your string.

<?php
  if (str_contains("Hello World", "Wor")) {
    echo "Substring found";
  } else {
    echo "Substring not found";
  }
?>

Output

Substring found

Check if string contains a substring using strpos() function

The strpos() function is used to check if a string contains a substring. If the substring is found, the function returns the position of the first character of the substring. If the substring is not found, the function returns false.

Code Example 1

<?php
    if (strpos("Every company is a tech company", "tech")) {
        echo "Match found";
    } else {
        echo "Match not found";
    }
?>

Output

Match found

Code Example 2

<?php
    if (strpos("Every company is a tech company", "technology")) {
        echo "Match found";
    } else{
        echo "Match not found";
    }
?>

Output

Match not found

You can use the strpos() function to check if a string contains a specific word or phrase. For example, to check if the string "The quick brown fox" contains the word "fox", you would use the following code:

if (strpos($string, 'fox') !== false) {
  echo 'The string contains the word "fox"';
}
else {
  echo 'The string does not contain the word "fox"';
}

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