Slicing Strings

Slicing

You can extract a range of characters using the substr() function.

Specify the starting index and the number of characters you wish to return.

Example

Start the slice at index 6 and continue for 5 positions.

$x = "Hello World!";
echo substr($x, 6, 5);

Slice to the End

By omitting the length parameter, the range will extend to the end of the string.

Example

Begin the slice at index 6 and continue to the end.

$x = "Hello World!";
echo substr($x, 6);

Slice From the End

Use negative indexes to initiate the slice from the end of the string.

Example

Retrieve the 3 characters starting from the “o” in “world” (index -5).

$x = "Hello World!";
echo substr($x, -5, 3);

Negative Length

Use a negative length to indicate how many characters to skip, beginning from the end of the string.

Example

From the string “Hi, how are you?”, extract the characters starting from index 5 and continue until the 3rd character from the end (index -3).

The result should be “ow are y”.

$x = "Hi, how are you?";
echo substr($x, 5, -3);