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

go to bug id or search bugs for

Request #44029 Suggestion for new "substring exists" function
Submitted: 2008-02-03 07:43 UTC Modified: 2008-02-03 16:15 UTC
From: anon at example dot com Assigned:
Status: Not a bug Package: Feature/Change Request
PHP Version: 5.2.5 OS:
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: anon at example dot com
New email:
PHP Version: OS:

 

 [2008-02-03 07:43 UTC] anon at example dot com 
Description:
------------
What we often need to test for is just whether a substring exists or not. For example this is very common when examining a user agent -- is "MSIE" there or not?

Currently you can use strpos, but you have to be careful to test only with two specific formulations, using the strict equivalency operators:

if (strpos($x, $y) === FALSE)

or

if (strpos($x, $y) !== FALSE)


That "anti-FALSE" approach is generally awkward, and if you use == or != by mistake you'll have ambiguity with a substring position of number 0.

It would be handy and much less prone to syntax mistakes, to have a dedicated "string exists" function which returns only TRUE or FALSE.

This might be "strex" or "strpres" ("string present").

Plus an equivalent case sensitive version -- striex or stripres.

Patches

Pull Requests

History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2008-02-03 07:46 UTC] whatever at yahoo dot com 
I entered this suggestion previously as bug #43825 -- which got closed 
as Bogus with no note.

Please explain why it is "bogus" if closing again. If tony2001@php.net 
thinks there is no usability problem with detecting the simple existence 
of a substring in a string, he should examine the commentary in 
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.strpos.php. If there's some other 
function that already does what I'm suggesting please indicate what it 
is.
 [2008-02-03 16:15 UTC] rasmus@php.net 
We already have strstr()
 
PHP Copyright © 2001-2025 The PHP Group
All rights reserved. 		Last updated: Fri Jul 04 15:01:36 2025 UTC