Removing forward slash from string is causing some issues in PHP, with substr

Question

I'm trying to remove a forward-slash from the end of a string.

Seems simple, but I'm having some issues. A really weird charactar is showing up at the end of the string. See my code:

function removeSlash($currentURL)
{

    if ( strpos($currentURL , '/') == (strlen($currentURL)-1) )
            $currentURL = substr( $currentURL, 0, -1 );

    return $currentURL;

}

$url = 'http://bob.com/';
var_dump( removeSlash($url) );

output:

string(15)"http://bob.com"

The above var_dump says 15 chars were returned, but there is actually 14...

So I ignore it. Then I write a little more code to store it in a DB. The invisible character emerges!

In phpMyAdmin, when i edit the row that the output was inserted in, this is what shows up (in the text field):

http://bob.com�

No idea how that's happening. I've tried str_replace(), $var[15] = '' and a load of other methods. All are doing the same!

I guess it could be the string terminating null byte. Have you tried getting the ascii code of that character? Use ord() on each character of the string to find out the ascii value. — crush
– crush, Commented May 30, 2013 at 13:30
Are you storing it into a binary field rather than a varchar? What kind of DB are you using? — crush
– crush, Commented May 30, 2013 at 13:41

Orangepill · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-30 13:50:54Z

2

Simple case would be to use

rtrim($currentUrl, "/");

But based on comments you may have more luck with this.

function removeSlash($currentURL)
{

    return preg_replace('/[\x00-\x1F\x80-\xFF]/', '', rtrim($currentURL));
}

edited May 30, 2013 at 13:50

answered May 30, 2013 at 13:31

Orangepill

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9 Comments

crush Over a year ago

I support this answer, though, I don't see any reason to put it in a function by itself. Just use rtrim($url, '/'); everywhere.

user2166351 Over a year ago

Hmm, this issue is still occurring.

Orangepill Over a year ago

Try with the updated answer... this should filter out all of the unprintable characters.

crush Over a year ago

Maybe there is some sort of character encoding issue going on between PHP and the database. I'm out of ideas.

user2166351 Over a year ago

Ah,I tried rtrim($currentURL); (without the second param). Your edit seems to have worked (rtrim($currentURL,"/");). But why? What was that? Why did it occur? And what does rtrim() do to solve it?

|

Vlad Preda · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-30 13:31:13Z

0

You could try:

$url = trim($url, '/');

Your issue is extremely weird though, this may not be the issue.

answered May 30, 2013 at 13:31

Vlad Preda

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