How to Remove the First Character of a String with PHP

  1. Using Itrim
  2. Using substr
  3. Using preg_replace
  4. Describing the Itrim Function
  5. Describing the substr Function
  6. Describing the preg_replace Function
  7. Related Resources

In this tutorial, we will represent to you three main PHP functions used for removing the first character of a string.

Check out the examples and choose the one that suits more for your project.

Using Itrim

The first PHP function that you can use for removing the first character of a string is Itrim().

All you need to do is just to apply the code below:

<?php

$str = '::f:o:';
$str = ltrim($str, ':');
var_dump($str); //=> 'f:o:'

?>

Using substr

The second way we recommend you to use is the substr() function. Here is how to run it:

<?php

$str = substr($str, 1);

?>

Using preg_replace

And the last handy function to use for removing the last character of a string is preg_replace():

<?php

$str = "hello";
$str = preg_replace('/^./', '', $str);

?>

Describing the Itrim Function

The Itrim() function is supported on PHP 4, PHP 5, and PHP 7 versions. This function is used for returning a string with whitespace stripped from the beginning of the string.

Describing the substr Function

The substr() is considered a built-in function in PHP, applied for extracting a part of a string.

It is capable of returning the extracted part of a string if successful. On failure, it will return either false or an empty string.

Describing the preg_replace Function

The preg_replace() function is capable of returning a string or an array of strings. Here, all the matches of a pattern, detected in the output are replaced with substrings.