PHP Strings

A string is a sequence of characters, like "Hello world!".

Strings

Strings in PHP are surrounded by either double quotation marks, or single quotation marks.

Example

 <!DOCTYPE html>
 <html>
 <body>

 <?php
 echo "Hello";
 print "Hello";
 ?>

 </body>
 </html>

Output

HelloHello

Note:

There is a big different between double quotes and single quotes in PHP.
Double quotes process special characters, single quotes does not.

Double or Single Quotes?

You can use double or single quotes, but you should be aware of the differences between the two.

Double quoted strings perform action on special characters.

E.g. when there is a variable in the string, it returns the value of the variable:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<?php
$x = "John";
echo "Hello $x";
?>

</body>
</html>

Output

Hello John

Single quoted strings does not perform such actions, it returns the string like it was written, with the variable name:

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<?php
$x = "John";
echo 'Hello $x';
?>

</body>
</html>

Output

Hello $x

String Length

The PHP strlen() function returns the length of a string.

Example

Return the length of the string "Hello world!":

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<?php
echo strlen("Hello world!");
?> 
 
</body>
</html>

Output

Word Count

The PHP str_word_count() function counts the number of words in a string.

Example

Count the number of word in the string "Hello world!":

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<?php
echo str_word_count("Hello world!");
?> 
 
</body>
</html>

Output

Search For Text Within a String

The PHP strpos() function searches for a specific text within a string.

If a match is found, the function returns the character position of the first match. If no match is found, it will return FALSE.

Example

Search for the text "world" in the string "Hello world!":

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<?php
echo strpos("Hello world!", "world");
?> 
 
</body>
</html>