Isolate the string between two strings [duplicate]

Question

I'm new to php and maybe this question has been asked before but i don't know what to search for specifically anyway here's the question

If I had a string like:

$adam = "this is a very long long string in here and has a lot of words";

I want to search inside this string for the first occurrence of the word "long" and the word "here", then select them with everything in between, and store it in a new string so the result should be:

$new_string = "long long string in here"

and by the way I wouldn't know the length of the string and the contents, all what I know is that it has the word long and the word here and I want them with the words in between.

i don't know like i said i'm new to php and i don't know what to search for.. i tried regular expressions and it seems not to have the answer and also searched for advanced search which wasn't specific enough.. so? — Alex C.
– Alex C., Commented Feb 23, 2013 at 20:33

Peter · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-23 20:38:12Z

1

Use these functions to do it:

strpos() - use it to search words in your string
substr() - use it to "cut" your string
strlen() - use it to get string length

find position of 'long' and 'word', and cut your string using substr.

edited Feb 23, 2013 at 20:38

answered Feb 23, 2013 at 20:33

Peter

17k9 gold badges55 silver badges77 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Alex C. Over a year ago

so just to be clear i have to locate the occurrence of the first word and then the occurrence of the second word by using strpos(); and then create the new string by substr(); but what should i do with strlen()?

Jim Over a year ago

Upvoted because Peter provides you with all of the tools you might need to accomplish the task. He doesn't simply give you the solution, which is not what stack overflow is about. You should first attempt a solution and then ask for more clarification.

peterm · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-03 19:52:43Z

1

Simple strpos, substr, strlen will do the trick

Your code might look like this

$adam = "this is a very long long string in here and has a lot of words";
$word1="long";
$word2="here";

$first = strpos($adam, $word1);
$second = strpos($adam, $word2);

if ($first < $second) {
    $result = substr($adam, $first, $second + strlen($word2) - $first);
}

echo $result;

Here is a working example

edited Nov 3, 2014 at 19:52

answered Feb 23, 2013 at 20:39

peterm

93k16 gold badges157 silver badges162 bronze badges

Comments

Stef Geysels · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-23 20:37:25Z

0

Here is your script, ready for copy-paste ;)

$begin=stripos($adam,"long");  //find the 1st position of the word "long"
$end=strripos($adam,"here")+4; //find the last position of the word "here" + 4 caraters of "here"
$length=$end-$begin;
$your_string=substr($adam,$begin,$length);

answered Feb 23, 2013 at 20:37

Stef Geysels

1,02711 silver badges28 bronze badges

Comments

KaeruCT · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-23 20:44:38Z

0

Here's a way of doing that with regular expressions:

$string = "this is a very long long string in here and has a lot of words";
$first = "long";
$last = "here";

$matches = array();

preg_match('%'.preg_quote($first).'.+'.preg_quote($last).'%', $string, $matches);
print $matches[0];

answered Feb 23, 2013 at 20:44

KaeruCT

1,65515 silver badges16 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Isolate the string between two strings [duplicate]

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Linked

Related