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Request #54387 Add str_slice() function, simple & logical string slicing function
Submitted: 2011-03-26 10:19 UTC Modified: 2018-04-08 15:49 UTC
Votes:5
Avg. Score:4.4 ± 0.8
Reproduced:3 of 3 (100.0%)
Same Version:0 (0.0%)
Same OS:0 (0.0%)
From: birken at gmail dot com Assigned:
Status: Suspended Package: Strings related
PHP Version: 5.3SVN-2011-03-26 (SVN) OS: agnostic
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
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 [2011-03-26 10:19 UTC] birken at gmail dot com
Description:
------------
The current state of string slicing in PHP is very confusing and non-obvious.

The substr() function attempted some nice string slicing features, but it just 
isn't a good interface for string slicing and due to legacy concerns it cannot 
be changed (I assume).

substr() problems:
- The interface is inconsistent and confusing.  When length is positive, then 
the function effectively returns from [start, start+length).  When length is 
negative, the function returns [start, str_len+length).  str_slice() has a much 
simpler interface: It returns from [start, end), and start and end may be 
defined as positive numbers from the start of the string or negative numbers 
from the end of the string.

- Returning FALSE when start + length parameters are invalid.  This is annoying 
because when using this function you always have to deal with this FALSE case if 
you need a string.  Here is an example where str_slice() produces a more logical 
output than substr:

print var_dump(substr('', -1) == '0'); // TRUE
print var_dump(str_slice('', -1) == '0'); // FALSE

This patch effectively solves the following bug as well:
http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=38437 (substr should return '' instead of FALSE)
http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=50434 (add str_startswith and str_endswith 
functions, which are trivial with str_slice, even in corner cases)

Test script:
---------------
Test is attached in the patch.


Patches

add-str_slice-function (last revision 2011-03-26 09:30 UTC by birken at gmail dot com)

Pull Requests

History

AllCommentsChangesGit/SVN commitsRelated reports
 [2016-06-07 16:30 UTC] cmb@php.net
Related to request #52129.
 [2018-04-08 15:49 UTC] cmb@php.net
-Status: Open +Status: Suspended
 [2018-04-08 15:49 UTC] cmb@php.net
Thanks for the patch!  Howver, adding yet more string functions to
the standard library is controversial, especially when the
respective functionality could easily be implemented in userland.
Therefore, this feature requires the RFC process[1].  Please go
ahead and start it!  For the time being, I'm suspending this
ticket.

[1] <https://wiki.php.net/rfc/howto>
 
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