How do i get the first and last character of a string in php?

What is the simplest way of checking whether the first letter of a string $str is 'a' and the last letter is 'a' too?

asked Feb 17, 2011 at 11:38

1

if($str[0] == 'a' && $str[strlen($str) - 1] == 'a') {
    //do whatever you wanted
}

answered Feb 17, 2011 at 11:39

The GiGThe GiG

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1

if(substr($str, 0,1) == "a" && substr( $str,-1) == "a")
{
    // code
}

answered Feb 17, 2011 at 11:42

TNCTNC

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1

Or use substr to get the last character:

if($str[0] == 'a' && substr($str,-1) == 'a') {
    //do whatever you wanted
}

answered Feb 17, 2011 at 11:44

qbert220qbert220

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0

In this article, we will find the last character of a string in PHP. The last character can be found using the following methods.

• Using array()method
• Using substr() method

Using array() Method: In this method, we will find the length of the string, then print the value of (length-1). For example, if the string is “Akshit” Its length is 6, in zero-indexing, the value of (length-1) is 5 which is the character “t” The length can be found using the PHP strlen() method.

The strlen() is a built-in function in PHP which returns the length of a given string. It takes a string as a parameter and returns its length. It calculates the length of the string including all the whitespaces and special characters.

Syntax:

strlen($string)

Example:

PHP

 $txt = "Geeksforgeeks";

 echo "Last Character of string is : " 

   .$txt[strlen($txt)-1];

?>

Output:

Last Character of string is : s

Using substr() Method: The substr() is a built-in function in PHP that is used to extract a part of string.

Syntax:

substr(string_name, start_position, string_length_to_cut)

Example: For example, if the string is “Akshit loves GeeksForGeeks”. The last character of the string is “s”. There are 2 ways to reach “s”. From the beginning “s” is at the 25th position. We can find the length of the string, then display “length-1”. This means we want to display part of the string using substr() method where the starting point is “length-1”.

PHP

$txt = "Akshit Loves GeeksForGeeks";

echo "Last character of String is : "

  .substr($txt, strlen($txt)-1);

?>

Output: From the end, “s” is at 1st position. We can display string from (-1)

Last character of String is : s

From end: “s” is at 1st position

We can display string from “-1”

PHP

$txt = "Akshit Loves GeeksForGeeks";

echo "Last character of String is: ".substr($txt, -1);

?>

Output

Last character of String is: s

NOTE: If you’re using multibyte character encodings like UTF-8, use mb_substr() instead of substr .