PHP

Using Strings

Note
There are many PHP functions available for arrays and for

strings.
You will only be responsible for those presented in class.
You may use others you find in PHP references for your

homework assignments.
(http://www.php.net/string - string type,
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ref.strings.php - string functions,
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/book.pcre.php - Perl-compatible
regular expressions)

Strings
Topics:
Formatting strings: trimming, for presentation, for storage
Joining and splitting strings with string functions
Comparing strings
Matching and replacing substrings with string functions
Using regular expressions

Strings
Recall:
String literals:

delimited by double or single quotes,

in heredoc syntax (creates a large text string without needing quotes, and
can be used anyplace a string would go)
<<<DONE
your_string_here
on_multiple_lines_until
closing_identifier
DONE
or nowdoc syntax

Interpolation of variables in double-quoted and heredoc strings

The string concatenation operator, .
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Formatting Strings - trimming

Several functions are available to tidy up strings before using them

especially user strings from an HTML form interface

Trimming strings = removing any excess whitespace
string trim(string $str [, string $charlist])

Strips whitespace (spaces, newlines \n, carriage returns \r, horizontal

tabs \t, end-of-string characters \0) from the start and end of string $str
Use the second optional parameter to indicate a list of characters to
strip instead of the default list (=whitespace)
Creates new string!
ltrim() and rtrim() are similar to trim(), but remove whitespace
only from the start /left (ltrim) or end/right (rtrim) of the string
Ex: collecting feedback for Bobs auto parts clean the user input,
trimming it is a first step
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Formatting Strings - printing

3 basic methods:
language construct echo
Prints a comma-separated series of strings
Can enclose string in parentheses for single string only

language construct print

Prints a single string which can be enclosed in parentheses or not
Returns T/F to indicate if it was successful
function printf( ) formats and prints a string

Just like C printf

First argument is a format string, the rest are variables to be formatted and
interpolated; see next
The sprintf() function is similar, except that it returns the formatted string
instead of printing it to the browser

All printing is output to the browser.

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Formatting Strings - printf

The functions printf() and sprintf () provide a means for

formatting strings
They will be familiar to C programmers
They are a bit messy and we will cover only briefly for a

few basic capabilities

printf() is used to format and then print a string

Just use as printf(.);

sprintf() formats into a new string rather than printing it

Use as $newStr = sprintf(.);
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Formatting Strings - printf

Both subroutines take a format string and a list of variables

printf($fmt_str, $a, $b, $c, );

The format string contains:
characters to be printed as they are and
special characters to describe how the following variables are to be
interpolated (= substituted) into the format string
you can format several variables into a printf() by including several
format specifications, (normally) one for each variable specified:
the format specifications should be in the same number as the
variables to format
the ith format specification is applied to the ith variable
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Formatting Strings - printf

The format specifications (or conversion specifications):
Start with the % character
An optional indicates the data in the field is left-justified
(rather than right-justified, which is the default)
Letters are used to designate the data type to be printed (floating
point value - f, decimal number - d, string - s, character - c, etc.)
Numbers between the % and the format type character give field
sizes:
First number is total size (width),
Second number (if any) gives the number of decimal places to display
(precision),
Numbers separated by a period.

Q: %10s, %6d, %5.2f ?

Formatting Strings - printf

Example: to format for currency
Data type is float (f)
Number of digits before decimal point is 5
Number of digits after decimal point is 2
Format specification is %8.2d

printf(Your total is \$%8.2f\n, $total);

If $total is 123.4567, prints Your total is $123.46

Example:
printf(%4d and %5.3f, $a, $b);
If $a is 1.23 and $b is 4.56, prints 1 and 4.560

There are far too many options to describe them all here.
Read your textbook or review your Java text for more details
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Formatting Strings presentation

HTML formatting: string nl2br(string $str)
Replaces all the new line characters in $str with XHTML <br /> tags
Creates a new string
Useful when echoing a long string to the browser
Example:
$sfweather = <p><strong>San Francisco daily weather forecast</strong>: \n
Today: \n Partly cloudy. Highs from the 60s to mid 70s. West winds 5 to 15 mph. \n
Tonight: \n Increasing clouds. Lows in the mid 40s to lower 50s. West winds 5 to 10
mph.</p>;
echo $sfweather; // the browser disregards plain whitespace
// everything on a single line except for newlines forced by the browser window
echo nl2br($sfweather); // each newline character is replaced with <br />
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nl2br.php
http://www.nku.edu/~frank/csc301/Examples/PHP_String

s/nl2br.php
http://www.nku.edu/~frank/csc301/Examples/PHP_String
s/nl2br_php.pdf

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Formatting Strings presentation

Changing the case of a string:
string strtoupper (string $str) turns string to uppercase
string strtolower (string $str) turns string to lowercase
string ucfirst (string $str) capitalizes 1st character of the string

if its alphabetic
string ucwords(string $str) sets 1st character in each word that
begins with an alphabetic character to upper case
For each of these functions:
The argument is a string
Function creates a new string
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Formatting Strings for storage

Reason certain characters
are valid as part of a string but
can cause problems when are inserted into a database because are

interpreted by the DBMS as control characters

Ex: single and double quotation marks, backslash

Solution: escape those characters by adding a backslash in

front of them: \, \ \\
how: string addslashes(string $str) returns the reformatted $str

string

Conversely:
string stripslashes(string $str) returns a copy of the $str string from

which the escape characters have been removed

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Formatting Strings for storage

Before applying addslashes() check if magic_quotes_gpc

configuration directive is turned on

With magic_quotes_gpc on, all variables coming from GET, POST and

cookie are automatically escaped

applying addslashes() would cause double-escaping
boolean get_magic_quotes_gpc()
returns T if magic_quotes_gpc is on; F otherwise
phpinfo()
displays magic_quotes_gpc directives value, among other information
magic_quotes_gpc is currently off on cscdb

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slashes
http://www.nku.edu/~frank/csc301/Examples/PHP_String

s/quotes.php
http://www.nku.edu/~frank/csc301/Examples/PHP_String
s/quotes_php.pdf

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Joining & splitting strings with string functions

array explode (string $separator, string $input [, int $limit])
Splits $input into pieces on a specified $separator string
Pieces are returned in an array
The number of pieces can be limited to $limit.
Example:
$email = campana1@nku.edu;
$email_array = explode(@, $email);
// email_array[0] contains the username (campana1)
// email_array[1] contains the domain name (nku.edu)
// actions can be decided upon customers origin as indicated by the domain name

string implode (string $glue, array $pieces) opposite to explode()

Joins array elements from $pieces with string $glue
join() is identical to implode()
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Joining & splitting strings with string functions

string strtok(string $input, string $separator)
Gets tokens (pieces) from $input one at a time
Splits $input on each of the characters in $separator rather than on the
whole separator (as explode() does)
Usage:
// first token extracted with a call to strtok() with both parameters
$token = strtok($feedback, " ,.");
// subsequent calls automatically apply to the same string;
// only separator is passed to strtok()
// strtok() maintains its internal pointer to its current place in the string
// reset the pointer by calling again strtok() with two parameters
while ($token != "") {
echo "$token <br />";
$token = strtok(" ,.");
}

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http://www.nku.edu/~frank/csc301/Examples/PHP_String

s/strtok.php
http://www.nku.edu/~frank/csc301/Examples/PHP_String
s/strtok_php.pdf

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Joining & splitting strings with string functions

string substr(string $str, int $start[, int $length])
Called with 1 positive argument (start): returns the substring of $str
from the $start position to the end of the string
Called with 1 negative argument (start): returns the substring of $str
from the end of the string - |$start| characters to the end of the string
Called with 2 arguments (start and length):
If

$length is positive: specifies the number of characters to return starting

from position $start
If $length is negative: function returns the substring from $start position to
the end of the string - |$length | position
Note: string position starts at 0

Extracting a single character: $string{$index}

$index is 0-based character count from start of string

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Comparing Strings
Use == and === for exact compare
Use strcmp() for ordered compare:
int strcmp(string $str1, string $str2)
Returns <0 if $str1 sorts before $str2 (= $str1 is less than

$str2) in lexicographic order

Returns >0 if $str2 sorts before $str1 in lexicographic order
Returns 0 if $str1 and $str2 are the same in lexicographic order
strcmp() is case-sensitive

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Comparing Strings
strncmp( )
Similar to strcmp(),
Has 3rd argument: number of characters to compare (if < strings

length)

Use int strlen(string $str) to get the length of a string

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