# substr

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

substr — Return part of a string

### Description

string substr ( string `$string` , int `$start` [, int `$length` ] )

Returns the portion of `string` specified by the `start` and `length` parameters.

### Parameters

`string`

  The input string.

`start`

  If `start` is non-negative, the returned string will start at the `start` 'th position in `string` , counting from zero. For instance, in the string 'abcdef', the character at position 0 is 'a', the character at position 2 is 'c', and so forth.

  If `start` is negative, the returned string will start at the `start` 'th character from the end of `string` .

  Example#1 Using a negative `start`

  `<?php
  $rest = substr("abcdef", -1); // returns "f"
  $rest = substr("abcdef", -2); // returns "ef"
  $rest = substr("abcdef", -3, 1); // returns "d"
  ?>`
`length`

  If `length` is given and is positive, the string returned will contain at most `length` characters beginning from `start` (depending on the length of `string` ). If `string` is less than or equal to `start` characters long, `FALSE` will be returned.

  If `length` is given and is negative, then that many characters will be omitted from the end of `string` (after the start position has been calculated when a `start` is negative). If `start` denotes a position beyond this truncation, an empty string will be returned.

  Example#2 Using a negative `length`

  `<?php
  $rest = substr("abcdef", 0, -1); // returns "abcde"
  $rest = substr("abcdef", 2, -1); // returns "cde"
  $rest = substr("abcdef", 4, -4); // returns ""
  $rest = substr("abcdef", -3, -1); // returns "de"
  ?>`

### Return Values

Returns the extracted part of string.

### Examples

Example#3 Basic substr() usage

`<?php
echo substr('abcdef', 1); // bcdef
echo substr('abcdef', 1, 3); // bcd
echo substr('abcdef', 0, 4); // abcd
echo substr('abcdef', 0, 8); // abcdef
echo substr('abcdef', -1, 1); // f
// Accessing single characters in a string
// can also be achived using "curly braces"
$string = 'abcdef';
echo $string{0}; // a
echo $string{3}; // d
echo $string{strlen($string)-1}; // f
?>`

### See Also

- strrchr()
- substr_replace()
- preg_match()
- trim()
- mb_substr()
- wordwrap()