String search functions (strpos, strstr) in PHP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

String Search Functions with strpos and strstr in PHP

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple text analyzer tool that helps users find specific words or phrases inside a paragraph. This tool will help users quickly locate where a word appears and extract parts of the text starting from that word.

🎯 Goal: Build a PHP script that uses strpos to find the position of a word in a sentence and strstr to extract the part of the sentence starting from that word.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a string variable with a fixed sentence.

Create a variable holding the word to search for.

Use strpos to find the position of the word in the sentence.

Use strstr to get the part of the sentence starting from the word.

Print the position and the extracted substring.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Searching text is common in many applications like search engines, text editors, and data processing tools.

💼 Career

Understanding string search functions helps in web development, data parsing, and building user-friendly search features.

1

Create the sentence string

Create a string variable called sentence and set it to the exact value: "Learning PHP string functions is fun and useful."

PHP

# Create a string variable called sentence with the given text
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use double quotes to create the string exactly as shown.

2

Set the word to search for

Create a string variable called searchWord and set it to the exact value: "string"

PHP

<?php
$sentence = "Learning PHP string functions is fun and useful.";
# Create a string variable called searchWord with the value "string"
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember to use double quotes for the string.

3

Find the position and extract substring

Use strpos with variables sentence and searchWord to find the position of searchWord in sentence and store it in a variable called position. Then use strstr with sentence and searchWord to get the substring starting from searchWord and store it in a variable called substring.

PHP

<?php
$sentence = "Learning PHP string functions is fun and useful.";
$searchWord = "string";
# Use strpos to find the position of searchWord in sentence and save to position
# Use strstr to get substring from searchWord in sentence and save to substring
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the exact variable names and function calls as shown.

4

Print the results

Print the position stored in position using echo with the exact text: "Position: " followed by the position. Then print the substring stored in substring with the exact text: "Substring: " followed by the substring. Each print should be on its own line.

PHP

<?php
$sentence = "Learning PHP string functions is fun and useful.";
$searchWord = "string";
$position = strpos($sentence, $searchWord);
$substring = strstr($sentence, $searchWord);
# Print the position with the text "Position: "
# Print the substring with the text "Substring: "
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use echo and concatenate strings with .. Use \n for new lines.