PHP Conference Nagoya 2025

strrchr

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

strrchrFind the last occurrence of a character in a string

Description

strrchr(string $haystack, string $needle, bool $before_needle = false): string|false

This function returns the portion of haystack which starts at the last occurrence of needle and goes until the end of haystack.

Parameters

haystack

The string to search in

needle

If needle contains more than one character, only the first is used. This behavior is different from that of strstr().

Prior to PHP 8.0.0, if needle is not a string, it is converted to an integer and applied as the ordinal value of a character. This behavior is deprecated as of PHP 7.3.0, and relying on it is highly discouraged. Depending on the intended behavior, the needle should either be explicitly cast to string, or an explicit call to chr() should be performed.

before_needle

If true, strrchr() returns the part of the haystack before the last occurrence of the needle (excluding the needle).

Return Values

This function returns the portion of string, or false if needle is not found.

Changelog

Version Description
8.3.0 The before_needle parameter was added.
8.0.0 needle now accepts an empty string.
8.0.0 Passing an int as needle is no longer supported.
7.3.0 Passing an int as needle has been deprecated.

Examples

Example #1 strrchr() example

<?php
$ext
= strrchr('somefile.txt', '.');
echo
"file extension: $ext \n";
$ext = $ext ? strtolower(substr($ext, 1)) : '';
echo
"file extension: $ext";
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

file extension: .txt
file extension: txt

Notes

Note: This function is binary-safe.

See Also

  • strstr() - Find the first occurrence of a string
  • strrpos() - Find the position of the last occurrence of a substring in a string

add a note

User Contributed Notes 8 notes

up
31
matthewkastor at live dot com
13 years ago
<?php
/**
* Removes the preceeding or proceeding portion of a string
* relative to the last occurrence of the specified character.
* The character selected may be retained or discarded.
*
* Example usage:
* <code>
* $example = 'http://example.com/path/file.php';
* $cwd_relative[] = cut_string_using_last('/', $example, 'left', true);
* $cwd_relative[] = cut_string_using_last('/', $example, 'left', false);
* $cwd_relative[] = cut_string_using_last('/', $example, 'right', true);
* $cwd_relative[] = cut_string_using_last('/', $example, 'right', false);
* foreach($cwd_relative as $string) {
* echo "$string <br>".PHP_EOL;
* }
* </code>
*
* Outputs:
* <code>
* http://example.com/path/
* http://example.com/path
* /file.php
* file.php
* </code>
*
* @param string $character the character to search for.
* @param string $string the string to search through.
* @param string $side determines whether text to the left or the right of the character is returned.
* Options are: left, or right.
* @param bool $keep_character determines whether or not to keep the character.
* Options are: true, or false.
* @return string
*/
function cut_string_using_last($character, $string, $side, $keep_character=true) {
$offset = ($keep_character ? 1 : 0);
$whole_length = strlen($string);
$right_length = (strlen(strrchr($string, $character)) - 1);
$left_length = ($whole_length - $right_length - 1);
switch(
$side) {
case
'left':
$piece = substr($string, 0, ($left_length + $offset));
break;
case
'right':
$start = (0 - ($right_length + $offset));
$piece = substr($string, $start);
break;
default:
$piece = false;
break;
}
return(
$piece);
}
?>
up
12
sekati at gmail dot com
18 years ago
just a small addition to carlos dot lage at gmail dot com note which makes it a bit more useful and flexible:

<?php
// return everything up to last instance of needle
// use $trail to include needle chars including and past last needle
function reverse_strrchr($haystack, $needle, $trail) {
return
strrpos($haystack, $needle) ? substr($haystack, 0, strrpos($haystack, $needle) + $trail) : false;
}
// usage:
$ns = (reverse_strrchr($_SERVER["SCRIPT_URI"], "/", 0));
$ns2 = (reverse_strrchr($_SERVER["SCRIPT_URI"], "/", 1));
echo(
$ns . "<br>" . $ns2);
?>
up
6
dchris1 at bigpond dot net dot au
20 years ago
The function provided by marcokonopacki at hotmail dot com isn't really a reverse-version of strrchr(), rather a reverse version of strchr(). It returns everything from the start of $haystack up to the FIRST instance of the $needle. This is basically a reverse of the behavior which you expect from strchr(). A reverse version of strrchr() would return everything in $haystack up to the LAST instance of $needle, eg:

<?php
// reverse strrchr() - PHP v4.0b3 and above
function reverse_strrchr($haystack, $needle)
{
$pos = strrpos($haystack, $needle);
if(
$pos === false) {
return
$haystack;
}
return
substr($haystack, 0, $pos + 1);
}
?>

Note that this function will need to be modified slightly to work with pre 4.0b3 versions of PHP due to the return type of strrpos() ('0' is not necessarily 'false'). Check the documentation on strrpos() for more info.

A function like this can be useful for extracting the path to a script, for example:

<?
$string = "/path/to/the/file/filename.php";

echo reverse_strrchr($string, '/'); // will echo "/path/to/the/file/"
?>
up
6
readless at gmx dot net
18 years ago
to: repley at freemail dot it

the code works very well, but as i was trying to cut script names (e.g.: $_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"] => /index.php, cut the string at "/" and return "index.php") it returned nothing (false). i've modified your code and now it works also if the needle is the first char.
- regards from germany

<?php
//strxchr(string haystack, string needle [, bool int leftinclusive [, bool int rightinclusive ]])
function strxchr($haystack, $needle, $l_inclusive = 0, $r_inclusive = 0){
if(
strrpos($haystack, $needle)){
//Everything before last $needle in $haystack.
$left = substr($haystack, 0, strrpos($haystack, $needle) + $l_inclusive);

//Switch value of $r_inclusive from 0 to 1 and viceversa.
$r_inclusive = ($r_inclusive == 0) ? 1 : 0;

//Everything after last $needle in $haystack.
$right = substr(strrchr($haystack, $needle), $r_inclusive);

//Return $left and $right into an array.
return array($left, $right);
} else {
if(
strrchr($haystack, $needle)) return array('', substr(strrchr($haystack, $needle), $r_inclusive));
else return
false;
}
}
?>
up
4
freakinunreal at hotmail dot com
18 years ago
to marcokonopacki at hotmail dot com.

I had to make a slight change in your function for it to return the complete needle inclusive.

// Reverse search of strrchr.
function strrrchr($haystack,$needle)
{

// Returns everything before $needle (inclusive).
//return substr($haystack,0,strpos($haystack,$needle)+1);
// becomes
return substr($haystack,0,strpos($haystack,$needle)+strlen($needle));
}

Note: the +1 becomes +strlen($needle)

Otherwise it only returns the first character in needle backwards.
up
7
Primo Anderson Do S?tio
19 years ago
$filename = 'strrchr_test.php';
print strrchr( $filename, '.' );

Result:
.php

$other_filename = 'strrchr_test.asp.php';
print strrchr( $other_filename, '.' );

Result:
.php
up
0
marcokonopacki at hotmail dot com
21 years ago
<?

// Reverse search of strrchr.
function strrrchr($haystack,$needle)
{

// Returns everything before $needle (inclusive).
return substr($haystack,0,strpos($haystack,$needle)+1);

}

$string = "FIELD NUMBER(9) NOT NULL";

echo strrrchr($string,")"); // Will print FIELD (9)

?>
up
-5
carlos dot lage at gmail dot com
19 years ago
I used dchris1 at bigpond dot net dot au 's reverse strrchr and reduced it to one line of code and fixed it's functionality - the real strrchr() returns FALSE if the needle is not found, not the haystack :)

<?php
// reverse strrchr()
function reverse_strrchr($haystack, $needle)
{
return
strrpos($haystack, $needle) ? substr($haystack, 0, strrpos($haystack, $needle) +1 ) : false;
}
?>
To Top