Question

I am trying to use strpos to find out if a string exists and then use substr_replace to delete that string. My code is below:

  $title=$item->get_title();
        $stringToFind='Help needed identifying this person in ';
        if(strpos($title,$stringToFind)){
            $title=substr_replace($title,'',0,strlen($stringToFind));
        }

However, when I do an echo on the strpos it always returns false when it should be true. So I’m wondering if strpos doesn’t do whitespace or something? IN which case can someone recommend something?

Answer 1

Why don’t you give this a shot :

$searchStr = 'Help needed identifying this person in ';
$title = str_replace($searchStr,'',$title);

The PHP documentation refers to the str_replace function as

Replace all occurrences of the search string with the replacement string.

If the $searchStr does not appear in the $title variable then the string will be left alone.
However, if it exists – it will be removed. You don’t need to test if it exists at all. If you need to test whether a change has been made or not you could compare the length of the two strings using strlen or mb_strlen depending on your encoding.

Example input/outputs :

CONSTANT – $searchStr = 'Help needed identifying this person in ';

// A match is found - string is changed
IN -> Help needed identifying this person in Timbuktu
OUT -> Timbuktu

IN -> Help needed identifying this person in Zimbabwe
OUT -> Zimbabwe

IN -> Help needed identifying this person in Netanya
OUT -> Netanya

// A match is not found - string remains the same
IN -> Stack Overflow is a programming Q & A site that’s free.
OUT -> Stack Overflow is a programming Q & A site that’s free.

IN -> We don’t run Stack Overflow. You do.
OUT -> We don’t run Stack Overflow. You do.