PHP offers powerful functions for string manipulation, and one particularly useful one is stripos(). This function helps you find the position of a substring within a larger string — without caring about case (uppercase or lowercase).

🔍 What is stripos()?

Think of having a large text (the haystack) and trying to find a smaller string (the needle) inside it. That’s what stripos() does — it searches for a substring inside another, case-insensitively.

🧾 Syntax

stripos(string $haystack, string $needle, int $offset = 0): int|false

🔎 Breakdown

  • $haystack: The main string you’re searching within.
  • $needle: The substring you’re trying to find.
  • $offset (optional): The starting position for the search. Default is 0.
  • Returns: The index position (starting from 0) of the first match or false if not found.

✅ Case-Insensitive Search

What makes stripos() special is that it doesn’t care about letter case.

Example:

$text = "The quick brown FOX jumps over the lazy dog.";
$position = stripos($text, "fox");
// Output: 16

Even though “FOX” is in uppercase, stripos() still finds it.

💡 Use Cases

  • User Input Validation: Matching input regardless of capitalization.
  • Text Searching: Finding keywords in articles or files.
  • Search Features: When building case-insensitive search bars.

🧠 Conclusion

If you need to search for a string within another string without worrying about case, stripos() is your friend. It’s simple, efficient, and saves you the stress of manually converting string cases.

✍️ Quiz Time!

1. What is the primary purpose of the round() function in PHP?

a) Convert a string to an integer b) Calculate the square root c) Round a number to a specified precision d) Generate a random number

2. Which PHP code rounds 3.14159 to two decimal places?

a) echo round(3.14159, 2); b) echo round(3.14159, 0); c) echo floor(3.14159 * 100) / 100; d) echo ceil(3.14159 * 100) / 100;

📝 Write your answers in the comments!

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