How to get a substring between two strings in PHP?

Answer 1

Here's a function

function getInnerSubstring($string, $boundstring, $trimit=false) {
    $res = false;
    $bstart = strpos($string, $boundstring);
    if ($bstart >= 0) {
        $bend = strrpos($string, $boundstring);
        if ($bend >= 0 && $bend > $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()

Answer 2

wrote these some time back, found it very useful for a wide range of applications.

<?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 > $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 > $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);
}
?>

Answer 3

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]

Answer 4

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 => $value) {
       if(strpos($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 "<pre>";
print_r(tag_contents($string , "[animal]" , "[/animal]"));
echo "</pre>";

//result
Array
(
    [0] => cat
    [1] => dog
    [2] => panda
)

Answer 5

<?php
  function getBetween($content,$start,$end){
    $r = explode($start, $content);
    if (isset($r[1])){
        $r = explode($end, $r[1]);
        return $r[0];
    }
    return '';
  }
?>

Example:

<?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;
?>

This will return "the guy in the middle".

Answer 6

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);
}