Extract a substring between two characters in a string PHP

Question

Is there a PHP function that can extract a phrase between 2 different characters in a string? Something like substr();

Example:

$String = "[modid=256]";

$First = "=";
$Second = "]";

$id = substr($string, $First, $Second);

Thus $id would be 256

Any help would be appreciated :)

You can do it in two parts: you firstly get string from $first and then parse the result till the $second character. — fedorqui, Feb 15 '13 at 09:37
what do you actually want to capture? the id, the string, the = ? — djjjuk, Feb 15 '13 at 09:38
in such cases i usually love to explode my strings: explode("=",$String); and in a second step i would get rid of that "]" maybe through rtrim($string, "]"); — tillinberlin, Feb 15 '13 at 09:39

score 70 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:40

70

use this code

$input = "[modid=256]";
preg_match('~=(.*?)]~', $input, $output);
echo $output[1]; // 256

working example http://codepad.viper-7.com/0eD2ns

answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:40

Yogesh Suthar

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For anyone wondering: The reason index `1` of `$output` contains the text matched by the pattern inside the parenthetical is that `$output[0]` is the full text of that is matched by the pattern. `$output[1]` is the text matched by the first sub-pattern; `$output[2]` is the text matched by the second sub-pattern, and so on. See [the official documentation on `preg_match`](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-match.php) for more. – Carter Pape May 20 '19 at 01:22

score 28 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 08 '13 at 05:52

28

Use:

<?php

$str = "[modid=256]";
$from = "=";
$to = "]";

echo getStringBetween($str,$from,$to);

function getStringBetween($str,$from,$to)
{
    $sub = substr($str, strpos($str,$from)+strlen($from),strlen($str));
    return substr($sub,0,strpos($sub,$to));
}

?>

answered Sep 08 '13 at 05:52

MD SHAHIDUL ISLAM

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Function returns FALSE if not matched. – Stuart Sep 12 '19 at 13:58

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 27 '17 at 18:52

4

$String = "[modid=256]";

$First = "=";
$Second = "]";

$Firstpos=strpos($String, $First);
$Secondpos=strpos($String, $Second);

$id = substr($String , $Firstpos, $Secondpos);

edited Dec 27 '17 at 18:52

mickmackusa

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answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:41

cartina

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The third argument to `substr` is `length` not ending position. If you run this, you will see that `$id` is equal to "=256]" here not "256". https://www.php.net/substr – salsbury Aug 13 '19 at 16:37

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 15 '13 at 11:09

3

If you don't want to use reqular expresion, use strstr, trim and strrev functions:

// Require PHP 5.3 and higher
$id = trim(strstr(strstr($String, '='), ']', true), '=]');

// Any PHP version
$id = trim(strrev(strstr(strrev((strstr($String, '='))), ']')), '=]');

answered Feb 15 '13 at 11:09

tasmaniski

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be careful, when no `=` or `]` in the `$string` ! – Vladimir Ch Nov 22 '20 at 17:59

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:39

2

Regular Expression is your friend.

preg_match("/=(\d+)\]/", $String, $matches);
var_dump($matches);

This will match any number, for other values you will have to adapt it.

answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:39

Gerald Schneider

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:41

1

You can use a regular expression:

<?php
$string = "[modid=256][modid=345]";
preg_match_all("/\[modid=([0-9]+)\]/", $string, $matches);

$modids = $matches[1];

foreach( $modids as $modid )
  echo "$modid\n";

http://eval.in/9913

answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:41

Bgi

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:42

1

$str = "[modid=256]";
preg_match('/\[modid=(?P<modId>\d+)\]/', $str, $matches);

echo $matches['modId'];

answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:42

Prasanth Bendra

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 08 '21 at 13:19

I think this is the way to get your string:

<?php
function get_string_between($string, $start, $end){
    $string = ' ' . $string;
    $ini = strpos($string, $start);
    if ($ini == 0) return '';
    $ini += strlen($start);
    $len = strpos($string, $end, $ini) - $ini;
    return substr($string, $ini, $len);
}


$fullstring = '.layout { 

color: {{ base_color }} 

}

li { 

color: {{ sub_color }} 

} 

.text { 

color: {{ txt_color }}

 }

 .btn { 

color: {{ btn_color }}

 }

.more_text{

color:{{more_color}}

}';

  $parsed = get_string_between($fullstring, '{{', '}}');
  echo $parsed;
?>

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:48

(moved from comment because formating is easier here)

might be a lazy approach, but in such cases i usually would first explode my string like this:

$string_array = explode("=",$String);

and in a second step i would get rid of that "]" maybe through rtrim:

$id = rtrim($string_array[1], "]");

...but this will only work if the structure is always exactly the same...

-cheers-

ps: shouldn't it actually be $String = "[modid=256]"; ?

Reshil · Answer 10 · 2013-02-15T10:13:03.360

0

Try Regular Expression

$String =" [modid=256]";
$result=preg_match_all('/(?<=(=))(\d+)/',$String,$matches);
print_r($matches[0]);

Output

Array ( [0] => 256 )

DEMO

Explanation Here its used the Positive Look behind (?<=)in regular expression eg (?<=foo)bar matches bar when preceded by foo, here (?<=(=))(\d+) we match the (\d+) just after the '=' sign. \d Matches any digit character (0-9). + Matches 1 or more of the preceeding token

edited Feb 15 '13 at 10:13

answered Feb 15 '13 at 09:48

Reshil

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Why you have used $result variable? – Usman Ahmed May 26 '16 at 05:44

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Jun 26 '23 at 18:30

There's a lot of good answers here. Some of the answers related to strpos, strlen, and using delimiters are wrong.

Here is working code that I used to find the height and width of an image using delimiters, strpos, strlen, and substr.

$imageURL = https://images.pexels.com/photos/5726359/pexels-photo-5726359.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=650&w=940;

// Get Height
$firstDelimiter = "&h=";
$secondDelimiter = "&w=";
$strPosStart = strpos($imageURL, $firstDelimiter)+3;
$strPosEnd = strpos($imageURL, $secondDelimiter)-$strPosStart;
$height = substr($imageURL, $strPosStart, $strPosEnd);
echo '<br>'.$height;


// Get Width
$firstDelimiter = "&w=";
$strPosStart = strpos($imageURL, $firstDelimiter)+3;
$strPosEnd = strlen($imageURL);
$width = substr($imageURL, $strPosStart, $strPosEnd);
echo '<br>'.$width;

Basically, define your string delimiters. You can also set them programmatically if you wish.

Then figure out where each delimiter starts and ends. You don't need to use multiple characters like I did, but make sure you have enough characters so it doesn't capture something else in the string.

It then figures out the starting and ending position of where the delimiter is found.

Substr requires the string it will be processing, the starting point, and the LENGTH of the string to capture. This is why there is subtraction done when calculating the height.

The width example uses string length instead since I know it will always be at the end of the string.

score -1 · Answer 12 · edited Dec 27 '17 at 18:54

You can use a regular expression or you can try this:

$String = "[modid=256]";

$First = "=";
$Second = "]";
$posFirst = strpos($String, $First); //Only return first match
$posSecond = strpos($String, $Second); //Only return first match

if($posFirst !== false && $posSecond !== false && $posFirst < $posSecond){
    $id = substr($string, $First, $Second);
}else{
//Not match $First or $Second
}

You should read about substr. The best way for this is a regular expression.

Extract a substring between two characters in a string PHP

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