Remove quotes from start and end of string in PHP

Question

I have strings like these:

\"my value1\" => my value1
\"my Value2\" => my Value2
myvalue3 => myvalue3 


        

Answer 1

If you like performance over clarity this is the way:

// Remove double quotes at beginning and/or end of output
$len=strlen($output);
if($output[0]==='"') $iniidx=1; else $iniidx=0;
if($output[$len-1]==='"') $endidx=-1; else $endidx=$len-1;
if($iniidx==1 || $endidx==-1) $output=substr($output,$iniidx,$endidx);

The comment helps with clarity... brackets in an array-like usage on strings is possible and demands less processing effort than equivalent methods, too bad there isnt a length variable or a last char index

Answer 2

This is an old post, but just to cater for multibyte strings, there are at least two possible routes one can follow. I am assuming that the quote stripping is being done because the quote is being considered like a program / INI variable and thus is EITHER "something" or 'somethingelse' but NOT "mixed quotes'. Also, ANYTHING between the matched quotes is to be retained intact.
Route 1 - using a Regex

function sq_re($i) {
    return preg_replace( '#^(\'|")(.*)\1$#isu', '$2', $i );
}

This uses \1 to match the same type quote that matched at the beginning. the u modifier, makes it UTF8 capable (okay, not fully multibyte supporting)

Route 2 - using mb_* functions

function sq($i) {
    $f = mb_substr($i, 0, 1);
    $l = mb_substr($i, -1);
    if (($f == $l) && (($f == '"') || ($f == '\'')) ) $i = mb_substr($i, 1, mb_strlen( $i ) - 2);
    return $i;
}