How to Check if a String Contains a Specific Word in PHP

This snippet will help you to check whether a string contains a specific word or not.

You can apply the <kbd class="highlighted">strpos()</kbd> function for checking if a string contains a certain word.

This function is capable of returning the position of the first occurrence of a substring inside a string. In the case of not detecting the substring, <kbd class="highlighted">false</kbd> is returned. But, the positions of the string begin from <kbd class="highlighted">0</kbd> and not <kbd class="highlighted">1</kbd>. For a better perception of this function, check out the example below:

php test string contains a word

<?php

$word = 'fox';
$myString = 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog';
// Test whether the string contains the word
if (strpos($myString, $word) !== false) {
    echo "Word Found!";
} else {
    echo "Word Not Found!";
}

 ?>

There is a new function <kbd class="highlighted">str_contains()</kbd> in PHP 8 that provides the same functionality.

Using php8 function str_contains

<?php

$word = 'fox';
$myString = 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog';

// Test whether the string contains the word
if (str_contains($myString, $word)) {
    echo 'Word Found!';
} else {
    echo 'Word Not Found!';
}

Defining the Strpos() Function

The <kbd class="highlighted">strpos()</kbd> function helps to detect the position of the first occurrence of a string inside another one.

This function is considered case-sensitive and binary-safe.

Also, you can meet functions relative to <kbd class="highlighted">strpos()</kbd>. Among them are:

• <kbd class="highlighted">strrpos():</kbd> aimed at detecting the position of a string’s last occurrence inside another string.
• <kbd class="highlighted">stripos():</kbd> aimed at detecting the position of a string’s first occurrence inside another string.
• <kbd class="highlighted">strripos():</kbd> aimed at detecting the position of a string’s last occurrence inside another string.