String variables are used to store and manipulate text.
String variables are used for values that contain characters.
After creating the string, we can operate on it. You can use the string directly in the function or store it in a variable.
In the following example, we create a string variable named txt and assign it the value "Hello world!". Then we output the value of the txt variable:
<?php$txt = "Hello world!" ;echo $txt ; ?> | Note: When you assign a text value to a variable, remember to enclose the text value in single or double quotes. |
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Now, let's take a look at some commonly used functions and operators for manipulating strings.
In PHP, there is only one string operator.
The concatenation operator (.) is used to concatenate two string values.
The following example demonstrates how to concatenate two string variables together:
<?php$txt1 = "Hello world!" ; $txt2 = "What a nice day!" ;echo $txt1 . " " . $txt2 ; ?>The above code will output: Hello world! What a nice day!
Tip: In the above code, we have used the concatenation operator twice. This is due to the fact that we need to insert a space between the two strings.
Sometimes it is useful to know the length of a string value.
The strlen() function returns the length of a string in characters.
The following example returns the length of the string "Hello world!":
<?php echo strlen ( "Hello world!" ); ?>The above code will output: 12
Tip: strlen() is often used in loops and other functions when it is important to determine when a string ends. (For example, in a loop, we need to end the loop after the last character in the string.)
The strpos() function is used to find a character or a specified text within a string.
If a match is found in the string, the function returns the first matching character position. If no match is found, returns FALSE.
The following example finds the text "world" in the string "Hello world!":
<?php echo strpos ( "Hello world!" , "world" ); ?>The above code will output: 6
Tip: In the above example, the string "world" is at position 6. The reason why it's 6 instead of 7 is that the first character in the string is at position 0, not 1.
For a complete reference manual for all string functions, visit our PHP String Reference Manual.
This reference manual provides a brief description and application examples of each function!