php.net |  support |  documentation |  report a bug |  advanced search |  search howto |  statistics |  random bug |  login

go to bug id or search bugs for

Request #15691 Returns from strpos()
Submitted: 2002-02-23 15:12 UTC Modified: 2002-02-24 10:23 UTC
From: mjohnwood at hotmail dot com Assigned:
Status: Closed Package: Feature/Change Request
PHP Version: 4.1.1 OS: Any
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
View Developer Edit
Welcome back! If you're the original bug submitter, here's where you can edit the bug or add additional notes.
If you forgot your password, you can retrieve your password here.
Password:
Status:
Package:
Bug Type:
Summary:
From: mjohnwood at hotmail dot com
New email:
PHP Version: OS:

 

 [2002-02-23 15:12 UTC] mjohnwood at hotmail dot com 
It would be boundlessly helpful if someone could make strpos(), etc. return a -1 instead of FALSE like C++/Java.  Returning a FALSE (something that casts to an integer of 0) doesn't seem to make much sense.  Even if it can be worked around with strpos() === FALSE, it would be a lot easier without having to rely upon it.  Any reason why it should be using FALSE instead of -1?

Patches

Pull Requests

History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2002-02-23 15:23 UTC] derick@php.net 
Changing this behavior will break way too many scripts, so it's absolutely not a good idea to change this behavior.

Derick
 [2002-02-24 10:23 UTC] rasmus@php.net 
I think returning -1 would be much worse.  That would mean that if(strpos($str,"foo")) would evaluate to true when "foo" does not exist in $str.  Bad idea.  
What has been suggested is to have it start at 1 instead of 0 to indicate a match in the first position.  That is a better idea, except it is inconsistent with the rest of PHP.  String indices start at 0 and often the result of a strpos() is passed to substr() in which case starting the strpos() return at 1 would really confuse people.
The way it currently is implemented is the most consistent and least confusing in my opinion.
 
PHP Copyright © 2001-2025 The PHP Group
All rights reserved. 		Last updated: Fri Jul 18 14:00:02 2025 UTC