CODEWITHSUNDEEP
php
Siddharth Thevaril
Siddharth Thevaril

Reputation: 3798

PHP substr echoes incorrect characters

I have a string:

‘I’m Part of a big MNC’: Tips on how you can rise to the top position.

I want the substring: ‘I’m Part

The string is stored in a variable called $title

My code:

<?php echo substr( $title, 0, 9 ); ?>

It returns ‘I’m on writephponline

and on webpage, it returns ‘I&

Any reason why this happens?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 65

Answers (3)

Franz Gleichmann
Franz Gleichmann

Reputation: 3579

the problem is that your data isn't ASCII. you have to use multibyte-functions and tell PHP to use the correct encoding, probably UTF-8, internally.

this example worked as expected in writephponline:

<?php
mb_internal_encoding("UTF-8");
$string = "‘I’m Part of a big MNC’";
var_dump(mb_substr($string, 0, 9));
//output:  string(13) "‘I’m Part"

Upvotes: 1

axiac
axiac

Reputation: 72425

The issue here comes from the fact that substr() doesn't count characters but bytes.

Your input string is multi-byte; one character is represented on one or more bytes. The exact amount depends on the encoding of the string. Most probably it is UTF-8 but only you can tell it for sure.

Anyway, the solution to your problem is the mb_substr() function which is part of the PHP mb extension.

Upvotes: 2

Alex Szabo
Alex Szabo

Reputation: 3276

The problem will be with the quotes you are using in your original string.

If you use regular single quotes ', the correct output will be presented:

$title = "'I'm Part of a big MNC': Tips on how you can rise to the top position.";
echo substr( $title, 0, 9 );

Result:

'I'm Part

Upvotes: 1

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