How to get a substring between two strings in PHP

Question

I need a function that returns the substring between two words  or two characters   I m wondering whether there is a php function that achieves that  I do not want to think about regex  well  I could do one but really don t think it s the best way to go   Thinking of strpos and substr functions  Here s an example    string    foo I wanna a cake foo     We call the function   substring   getInnerSubstring  string  foo     It returns    I wanna a cake     Thanks in advance    Update  Well  till now  I can just get a substring beteen two words in just one string  do you permit to let me go a bit farther and ask if I can extend the use of getInnerSubstring  str  delim  to get any strings that are between delim value  example    string    foo I like php foo  but foo I also like asp foo  foo I feel hero  foo     I get an array like   I like php    I also like asp    I feel hero

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I had some problems with the get string between   function  used here  So I came with my own version  Maybe it could help people in the same case as mine   protected function string between  string   start   end   inclusive   false         fragments   explode  start   string  2      if  isset  fragments 1             fragments   explode  end   fragments 1   2         if   inclusive             return  start  fragments 0   end          else            return  fragments 0                   return false

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Use                                         function getdatabetween  string   start   end        sp   strpos  string   start  strlen  start        ep   strpos  string   end -strlen  start        data   trim substr  string   sp   ep        return trim  data      dt    Find string between two strings in PHP   echo getdatabetween  dt   Find    in PHP

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I like the regular expression solutions but none of the others suit me   If you know there is only gonna be 1 result you can use the following    between   preg replace       BEFORE    AFTER     sm     2    string     Change BEFORE and AFTER to the desired delimiters   Also keep in mind this function will return the whole string in case nothing matched   This solution is multiline but you can play with the modifiers depending on your needs

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I have been using this for years and it works well  Could probably be made more efficient  but  grabstring  Test string        0  returns Test string grabstring  Test string   Test      0  returns string grabstring  Test string   s     5  returns string  function grabstring  strSource  strPre  strPost  StartAt    if  strpos  strSource  strPre    FALSE  amp  amp   strPre           return          Startpoint strpos  strSource  strPre  StartAt  strlen  strPre   if  strPost               EndPoint   strlen  strSource     else       if strpos  strSource  strPost  Startpoint    FALSE            EndPoint  strlen  strSource         else            EndPoint   strpos  strSource  strPost  Startpoint           if  strPre               Startpoint   0    if  EndPoint -  Startpoint  lt  1        return       else           return substr  strSource   Startpoint   EndPoint -  Startpoint

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If the strings are different  ie   foo   amp    foo    take a look at this post from Justin Cook  I copy his code below   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    this is my  tag dog  tag     parsed   get string between  fullstring    tag       tag      echo  parsed      result   dog

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wrote these some time back  found it very useful for a wide range of applications    lt  php     substr getbykeys   - Returns everything in a source string that exists between the first occurance of each of the two key substrings             - only returns first match  and can be used in loops to iterate through large datasets             - arg 1 is the first substring to look for             - arg 2 is the second substring to look for             - arg 3 is the source string the search is performed on              - arg 4 is boolean and allows you to determine if returned result should include the search keys              - arg 5 is boolean and can be used to determine whether search should be case-sensative or not      function substr getbykeys  key1   key2   source   returnkeys   casematters        if   casematters     true             start   strpos  source   key1            end   strpos  source   key2         else            start   stripos  source   key1            end   stripos  source   key2             if   start     false     end     false    return false        if   start  gt   end             temp    start           start    end           end    temp            if    returnkeys     true             length     end   strlen  key2   -  start        else            start    start   strlen  key1            length    end -  start            return substr  source   start   length         substr delbykeys   - Returns a copy of source string with everything between the first occurance of both key substrings removed             - only returns first match  and can be used in loops to iterate through large datasets             - arg 1 is the first key substring to look for             - arg 2 is the second key substring to look for             - arg 3 is the source string the search is performed on              - arg 4 is boolean and allows you to determine if returned result should include the search keys              - arg 5 is boolean and can be used to determine whether search should be case-sensative or not      function substr delbykeys  key1   key2   source   returnkeys   casematters        if   casematters     true             start   strpos  source   key1            end   strpos  source   key2         else            start   stripos  source   key1            end   stripos  source   key2             if   start     false     end     false    return false        if   start  gt   end             temp    start            start    end           end    temp            if    returnkeys     true             start    start   strlen  key1            length    end -  start        else            length     end   strlen  key2   -  start              return substr replace  source       start   length       gt

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A vast majority of answers here don t answer the edited part  I guess they were added before  It can be done with regex  as one answer mentions  I had a different approach     This function searches  string and finds the first string between  start and  end strings  starting at  offset position  It then updates the  offset position to point to the start of the result  If  includeDelimiters is true  it includes the delimiters in the result   If the  start or  end string are not found  it returns null  It also returns null if  string   start  or  end are an empty string   function str between string  string  string  start  string  end  bool  includeDelimiters   false  int  amp  offset   0    string       if   string            start            end         return null        startLength   strlen  start        endLength   strlen  end         startPos   strpos  string   start   offset       if   startPos     false  return null        endPos   strpos  string   end   startPos    startLength       if   endPos     false  return null        length    endPos -  startPos     includeDelimiters    endLength   - startLength       if    length  return           offset    startPos     includeDelimiters   0    startLength         result   substr  string   offset   length        return   result     false    result   null         The following function finds all strings that are between two strings  no overlaps   It requires the previous function  and the arguments are the same  After execution   offset points to the start of the last found result string   function str between all string  string  string  start  string  end  bool  includeDelimiters   false  int  amp  offset   0    array        strings            length   strlen  string        while   offset  lt   length                 found   str between  string   start   end   includeDelimiters   offset           if   found     null  break            strings      found           offset    strlen  includeDelimiters    found    start    found    end      move offset to the end of the newfound string            return  strings        Examples   str between all  foo 1 bar 2 foo 3 bar    foo    bar   gives    1      3      str between all  foo 1 bar 2    foo    bar   gives    1      str between all  foo 1 foo 2 foo 3 foo    foo    foo   gives    1      3      str between all  foo 1 bar    foo    foo   gives

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function strbtwn  s  start  end        i   strpos  s  start        j   strpos  s  end  i       return  i   false   j   false  false  substr substr  s  i  j- i  strlen  start        usage   echo strbtwn  s   lt h2 gt     lt  h2 gt       lt h2 gt    lt  h2 gt  -- gt

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I use   if  count explode   lt TAG gt     input   gt 1          content   explode   lt  TAG gt   explode   lt TAG gt     input  1   0    else         content           Subtitue  lt TAG  for whatever delimiter you want

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Try this  Its work for me  get data between test word     str    Xdata test HD01 test 1data      result   explode  test   str      print r  result   echo  result 1

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It can be easily done using this small function   function getString  string   from   to         str   explode  from   string        str   explode  to   str 1        return  s 0      myString     lt html gt Some code lt  html gt    print getString  myString    lt html gt      lt  html gt         Prints  Some code

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Here s a function  function getInnerSubstring  string   boundstring   trimit false         res   false       bstart   strpos  string   boundstring       if   bstart  gt   0             bend   strrpos  string   boundstring           if   bend  gt   0  amp  amp   bend  gt   bstart               res   substr  string   bstart strlen  boundstring    bend- bstart-strlen  boundstring              return  trimit   trim  res     res      Use it like   string    foo I wanna a cake foo    substring   getInnerSubstring  string   foo     echo  substring    Output  note that it returns spaces in front and at the and of your string if exist      I wanna a cake   If you want to trim result use function like   substring   getInnerSubstring  string   foo   true     Result  This function will return false if  boundstring was not found in  string or if  boundstring exists only once in  string  otherwise it returns substring between first and last occurrence of  boundstring in  string    References   strpos   strrpos   substr   trim

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In PHP s strpos style this will return false if the start mark sm or the end mark em are not found   This result  false  is different from an empty string that is what you get if there is nothing between the start and end marks   function between   str   sm   em          s   strpos   str   sm        if   s     false   return false       s    strlen   sm         e   strpos   str   em   s        if   e     false   return false      return substr   str   s   e -  s        The function will return only the first match   It s obvious but worth mentioning that the function will first look for sm and then for em   This implies you may not get the desired result behaviour if em has to be searched first and then the string have to be parsed backward in search of sm

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I have to add something to the post of Julius Tilvikas  I looked for a solution like this one he described in his post  But i think there is a mistake  I don t get realy the string between two string  i also get more with this solution  because i have to substract the lenght of the start-string  When do this  i realy get the String between two strings   Here are my changes of his solution   function get string between   string   start   end   inclusive   false        string        string       if   start           ini   0        else    ini   strpos  string   start          if   end           len   strlen  string         else    len   strpos  string   end   ini  -  ini - strlen  start         if    inclusive     ini    strlen  start         else    len    strlen  end          return substr  string   ini   len       Greetz  V

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If you have multiple recurrences from a single string and you have different  start  and   end  pattern   Here s a function which output an array   function get string between  string   start   end        split string         explode  end  string       foreach  split string as  data              str pos         strpos  data  start             last pos        strlen  data             capture len      last pos -  str pos            return          substr  data  str pos 1  capture len             return  return

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Use    lt  php   str       server daemon started with pid 6849  parent 6848      from    pid     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         gt

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use strstr php function twice    value    This is a great day to be alive    value   strstr  value   is      gets all text from needle on  value   strstr  value   be   true     gets all text before needle echo  value    outputs   is a great day to

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UTF-8 version of  Alejandro Iglesias answer  will work for non-latin characters   function get string between  string   start   end        string          string       ini   mb strpos  string   start  0   UTF-8        if   ini    0  return          ini    mb strlen  start   UTF-8         len   mb strpos  string   end   ini   UTF-8   -  ini      return mb substr  string   ini   len   UTF-8        fullstring    this is my  tag dog  tag     parsed   get string between  fullstring    tag       tag      echo  parsed      result   dog

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This is the function I m using for this  I combined two answers in one function for single or multiple delimiters   function getStringBetweenDelimiters  p string   p from   p to   p multiple false         checking for valid main string       if  strlen  p string   gt  0              checking for multiple strings          if   p multiple                   getting list of results by end delimiter              result list   explode  p to   p string                 looping through result list array              foreach    result list AS  rlkey   gt   rlrow                       getting result start position                  result start pos     strpos  rlrow   p from                      calculating result length                  result len            strlen  rlrow  -  result start pos                      return only valid rows                 if   result start pos  gt  0                           cleanying result string   removing  p from text from result                      result       substr  rlrow   result start pos   strlen  p from    result len                                        end if                   end foreach              if single string           else                  result start point   removing  p from text from result              result start pos     strpos  p string   p from    strlen  p from                  lenght of result string              result length        strpos  p string   p to   result start pos                  cleaning result string              result               substr  p string   result start pos 1   result length                 end if else         if empty main string       else            result   false           end if else       return  result         end func  get string between   For simple use  returns two      result   getStringBetweenDelimiters   one two three     one    three      For getting each row in a table to result array      result   getStringBetweenDelimiters  table    lt tr gt      lt  tr gt    true

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Consider this function  It accepts both position number  and strings arguments  function get string between  string   start        end            if  empty  start            start   0       elseif   is numeric  start            start   strpos  string   start    strlen  start              if  empty  end            end   strlen  string        elseif   is numeric  end            end   strpos  string   end              return substr  string   start    end -  start         Results  echo get string between  string      result   this is my  tag dog  tag  echo get string between  string  0      result   this is my  tag dog  tag  echo get string between  string          result   this is my  tag dog  tag  echo get string between  string    tag        result   dog  tag  echo get string between  string  0     tag        result   this is my  tag dog echo get string between  string         tag        result   this is my  tag dog echo get string between  string    tag       tag        result   dog echo get string between  string    tag    strlen  string       dog  tag

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echo explode      explode       string  0   1     Replace      with your first character string and     with your ending character string

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private function getStringBetween string  from  string  to  string  haystack   string        fromPosition   strpos  haystack   from        toPosition   strpos  haystack   to   fromPosition        betweenLength    toPosition -  fromPosition      return substr  haystack   fromPosition   betweenLength

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function img  n  str         first  n  quot tag  quot        n  1       last  n  quot tag  quot        frm   stripos  str  first        to   stripos  str  last       echo  frm  quot  lt br gt  quot       echo  to  quot  lt br gt  quot        to   to   quot  quot    strlen  str - frm    to- frm        final   substr  str  frm  to       echo  to  quot  lt br gt  quot       echo  final  quot  lt br gt  quot         str    quot 1tag Ilove php2tag youlike java3tag youlike php quot   img 1  str    img 2  str    img 3  str

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Improvement of Alejandro s answer  You can leave the  start or  end arguments empty and it will use the start or end of the string   echo get string between  Hello my name is bob    my          output    name is bob   private function get string between  string   start   end      Get     if  start           If  start is empty  use start of the string          string          string           ini   strpos  string   start           if   ini    0  return              ini    strlen  start             else           ini   0             if   end            If  end is blank  use end of string         return substr  string   ini             else           len   strpos  string   end   ini  -  ini    Work out length of string         return substr  string   ini   len

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function getBetween  string   start        end            if  strpos  string   start        required if  start not exist in  string          startCharCount   strpos  string   start    strlen  start            firstSubStr   substr  string   startCharCount  strlen  string             endCharCount   strpos  firstSubStr   end           if   endCharCount    0                 endCharCount   strlen  firstSubStr                     return substr  firstSubStr  0   endCharCount         else           return               Sample use   echo getBetween  abc   a   c       returns   b   echo getBetween  hello   h   o       returns   ell   echo getBetween  World   a   r       returns

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If you re using foo as a delimiter  then look at explode

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lt  php   function getBetween  content  start  end        r   explode  start   content       if  isset  r 1              r   explode  end   r 1            return  r 0             return           gt    Example     lt  php     content    Try to find the guy in the middle with this function       start    Try to find       end     with this function       output   getBetween  content  start  end     echo  output    gt    This will return  the guy in the middle

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an edited version of what Alejandro Garc  a Iglesias put    This allows you to pick a specific location of the string you want to get based on the number of times the result is found    function get string between pos  string   start   end   pos        cPos   0       ini   0       result           for  i   0   i  lt   pos   i            ini   strpos  string   start   cPos         if   ini    0  return            ini    strlen  start          len   strpos  string   end   ini  -  ini         result   substr  string   ini   len          cPos    ini    len            return  result        usage     text    string has start test 1 end and start test 2 end and start test 3 end to print      get  result    test 1   result    this- gt get string between pos  text   start    end   1      get  result    test 2   result    this- gt get string between pos  text   start    end   2      get  result    test 3   result    this- gt get string between pos  text   start    end   3     strpos has an additional optional input to start its search at a specific point  so I store the previous position in  cPos so when the for loop checks again  it starts at the end of where it left off

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Not a php pro  but i recently ran into this wall too and this is what i came up  with   function tag contents  string   tag open   tag close      foreach  explode  tag open   string  as  key   gt   value           if strpos  value   tag close      FALSE                result     substr  value  0  strpos  value   tag close                      return  result      string    i love cute animals  like  animal cat  animal               animal dog  animal  and  animal panda  animal        echo   lt pre gt    print r tag contents  string     animal        animal      echo   lt  pre gt       result Array        0    gt  cat      1    gt  dog      2    gt  panda

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function getInbetweenStrings  start   end   str        matches   array         regex      start  a-zA-Z0-9     end        preg match all  regex   str   matches       return  matches 1          for examle you want the array of strings keys  between    in following   example  where     doesn t fall in-between    str    C     ad custom attr1     upn     samaccountname      str arr   getInbetweenStrings              str    print r  str arr

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A bit improved code from GarciaWebDev and Henry Wang  If empty  start or  end is given  function returns values from the beginning or to the end of the  string  Also Inclusive option is available  whether we want to include search result or not     function get string between   string   start   end   inclusive   false        string        string       if   start           ini   0        else    ini   strpos  string   start          if   end           len   strlen  string         else    len   strpos  string   end   ini  -  ini        if    inclusive     ini    strlen  start         else    len    strlen  end          return substr  string   ini   len

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Got best solution for this from tonyspiro  function getBetween  content  start  end       r   explode  start   content      if  isset  r 1             r   explode  end   r 1           return  r 0           return

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function getInnerSubstring  string  delim           foo a foo  becomes  array      a            string   explode  delim   string  3      also  we only need 2 items at most        we check whether the 2nd is set and return it  otherwise we return an empty string     return isset  string 1      string 1            Example of use   var dump getInnerSubstring  foo Hello world foo   foo        prints  string 13    Hello world     If you want to remove surrounding whitespace  use trim  Example   var dump trim getInnerSubstring  foo Hello world foo   foo         prints  string 11   Hello world

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With some error catching   Specifically  most of the functions presented require  end to exist  when in fact in my case I needed it to be optional  Use this is  end is optional  and evaluate for FALSE if  start doesn t exist at all   function get string between   string   start   end         string          string       start ini   strpos   string   start         end   strpos   string   end   start 1        if   start  amp  amp   end            return substr   string   start ini   strlen  start   strlen   string  -   start ini    end            elseif    start  amp  amp    end             return substr   string   start ini   strlen  start           else           return FALSE

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Regular expressions is the way to go    str    before-str-after   if  preg match   before-     -after     str   match     1        echo  match 1       onlinePhp

[php] How to get a substring between two strings in PHP?

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