Get "first" AND "last" character of a php string in one line?

Question

Is there a one line way to combine getting first and last character of a string?

I tried (without success):

$title = "IncredibleTitle";
$title_characters = (mb_substr($title, 0, 1, 'UTF8')) && (mb_substr($title, 0, -1, 'UTF8'));

Answer 1

• Use . period character for concatenation.
• To get last character, 2nd param has to be -1 and third param will be value 1 or the length. See mb_substr.

Snippet:

<?php

$title = "IncredibleTitle";
$title_characters = (mb_substr($title, 0, 1, 'UTF8')) . (mb_substr($title, -1, 1, 'UTF8'));
echo $title_characters;

Online Demo