This might be what you are looking for:
<?php
$text = 'This is a Simple text.';
// this echoes "is is a Simple text." because 'i' is matched first
echo strpbrk($text, 'mi');
// this echoes "Simple text." because chars are case sensitive
echo strpbrk($text, 'S');
?>
Is it?
Or maybe this:
<?php
$mystring = 'abc';
$findme = 'a';
$pos = strpos($mystring, $findme);
// Note our use of ===. Simply == would not work as expected
// because the position of 'a' was the 0th (first) character.
if ($pos === false) {
echo "The string '$findme' was not found in the string '$mystring'";
} else {
echo "The string '$findme' was found in the string '$mystring'";
echo " and exists at position $pos";
}
?>
Or even this
<?php
$email = '[email protected]';
$domain = strstr($email, '@');
echo $domain; // prints @example.com
$user = strstr($email, '@', true); // As of PHP 5.3.0
echo $user; // prints name
?>
You can read all about them in the documentation here: