substr_replace

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

substr_replace — 替换字符串的子串

说明

substr_replace ( mixed $string , mixed $replacement , mixed $start , mixed $length = ? ) : mixed

substr_replace() 在字符串 string 的副本中将由 start 和可选的 length 参数限定的子字符串使用 replacement 进行替换。

参数

string

输入字符串。

An array of strings can be provided, in which case the replacements will occur on each string in turn. In this case, the replacement, start and length parameters may be provided either as scalar values to be applied to each input string in turn, or as arrays, in which case the corresponding array element will be used for each input string.

replacement

替换字符串。

start

如果 start 为正数，替换将从 string 的 start 位置开始。

如果 start 为负数，替换将从 string 的倒数第 start 个位置开始。

length

如果设定了这个参数并且为正数，表示 string 中被替换的子字符串的长度。如果设定为负数，它表示待替换的子字符串结尾处距离 string 末端的字符个数。如果没有提供此参数，那么它默认为 strlen( string ) （字符串的长度）。当然，如果 length 为 0，那么这个函数的功能为将 replacement 插入到 string 的 start 位置处。

返回值

返回结果字符串。如果 string 是个数组，那么也将返回一个数组。

更新日志

版本 说明
4.3.3 All parameters now accept arrays.

范例

Example #1 substr_replace() 范例

<?php
$var = 'ABCDEFGH:/MNRPQR/';
echo "Original: $var<hr />\n";

/* 这两个例子使用 "bob" 替换整个 $var。*/
echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', 0) . "<br />\n";
echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', 0, strlen($var)) . "<br />\n";

/* 将 "bob" 插入到 $var 的开头处。*/
echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', 0, 0) . "<br />\n";

/* 下面两个例子使用 "bob" 替换 $var 中的 "MNRPQR"。*/
echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', 10, -1) . "<br />\n";
echo substr_replace($var, 'bob', -7, -1) . "<br />\n";

/* 从 $var 中删除 "MNRPQR"。*/
echo substr_replace($var, '', 10, -1) . "<br />\n";
?>

Example #2 Using substr_replace() to replace multiple strings at once

<?php
$input = array('A: XXX', 'B: XXX', 'C: XXX');

// A simple case: replace XXX in each string with YYY.
echo implode('; ', substr_replace($input, 'YYY', 3, 3))."\n";

// A more complicated case where each replacement is different.
$replace = array('AAA', 'BBB', 'CCC');
echo implode('; ', substr_replace($input, $replace, 3, 3))."\n";

// Replace a different number of characters each time.
$length = array(1, 2, 3);
echo implode('; ', substr_replace($input, $replace, 3, $length))."\n";
?>

以上例程会输出：

A: YYY; B: YYY; C: YYY
A: AAA; B: BBB; C: CCC
A: AAAXX; B: BBBX; C: CCC

注释

Note: 此函数可安全用于二进制对象。

参见

User Contributed Notes

meg dot phillips91 at gmail dot com 18-Jun-2020 04:47
This may be obvious to others, but I just spent hours and my feeble brain only caught up to it after a long break.

If you are looping through a string which has multiple substrings that need to be replaced, you have to add an offset factor to each original offset before you replaced any strings. Here is a real world example:

From draft.js we get paragraphs with multiple links designated only with offset, anchor text length, url, target. So each anchor text must be wrapped in the <a href="url" target="target">anchortext</a> to save proper content in the database.

Here is the implementation of offset factor:

 $offset_factor = 0;

 foreach($content->links->links as $index=>$link){
            $replacement = '<a href="'.$link->href.'"  target="$link->target">'.$link->anchorText.'</a>';
            $new_offset = $link->offset + $offset_factor;
            $newtext = \substr_replace($content->text, $replacement, $new_offset, $link->length);

            //now we reset the original paragraph text with newtext
            $content->text = $newtext;
          
            //calculate the new offset by calculating the difference in replacement length and original length and add that to the offset_factor
            $additional_characters = strlen($replacement) - $link->length;
            $offset_factor =  $offset_factor + $additional_characters;
        }

I hope this helps a noobie :) If there is another easier way, I would love to hear about it.
shaman_master at list dot ru 31-Dec-2019 10:48
Add prefix to strings:
<?php
substr_replace($strings, '_prefix', 0, 0);
?>
Add suffix/postfix to strings:
<?php
substr_replace($strings, '_suffix', array_map('strlen', $strings), 0);
?>
bkline at rksystems dot com 12-Mar-2019 01:21
I imagine the description of the parameters really means "number of bytes" where it says "number of characters" (confirmed by testing).
yeyijelud at amadamus dot com 08-Nov-2018 06:18
First Example can be simplified =>

 $input = array('A: XXX', 'B: XXX', 'C: XXX');

 substr_replace($input, 'YYY', -3);

output: Array ( [0] => A: YYY [1] => B: YYY [2] => C: YYY )
Hayley Watson 26-Sep-2017 12:32
See array_splice if you want to do this sort of thing to an array.
nospam at nospam dot com 21-Jan-2016 09:45
<?php

// shortens a long string to a max length while inserting a string into the exact middle
function strShorten($str, $maxlen = 10, $insert = '/.../') {
  if ($str && !is_array($str)) { // valid string
    if ($maxlen && is_numeric($maxlen) && $maxlen < strlen($str)) { // string needs shortening
      if ($insert && ($ilen = strlen($insert))) { // insert string and length
        if ($ilen >= $maxlen) { // insert string too long so use default insert
          $insert = '**'; // short default so works even when a very small $maxlen
          $ilen = 2;
        }
      }
      $chars = $maxlen - $ilen; // number of $str chars to keep
      $start = ceil($chars/2); // position to start cutting
      $end = floor($chars/2); // position from end to stop cutting
      return substr_replace($str, $insert, $start, -$end); // first.insert.last
    } else { // string already short enough
      return $str; // return original string
    }
  }
}

echo strShorten('123456789', 6, ''); // outputs 123789
echo strShorten('123456789', 6, '-'); // outputs 123-89
echo strShorten('123456789', 6, 'longstring'); // outputs 12**89
echo strShorten('abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz', 10, '..'); // outputs abcd..wxyz
echo strShorten('abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'); // outputs abc/.../yz

?>
olav at schettler dot net 01-Nov-2015 08:12
Please note that the function array_slice(), which has a similar functionality but for arrays rather than for strings, has its parameters in a different order.
ivijan dot stefan at gmail dot com 05-Mar-2014 08:15
I have a little function that works like substr_replace ()  what I use for some purpose. Maybe someone needs it.

<?php
function putinplace($string=NULL, $put=NULL, $position=false)
{
    $d1=$d2=$i=false;
    $d=array(strlen($string), strlen($put));
    if($position > $d[0]) $position=$d[0];
    for($i=$d[0]; $i >= $position; $i--) $string[$i+$d[1]]=$string[$i];
    for($i=0; $i<$d[1]; $i++) $string[$position+$i]=$put[$i];
    return $string;
}

// Explanation
$string='My dog dont love postman'; // string
$put="'"; // put ' on position
$position=10; // number of characters (position)
print_r( putinplace($string, $put, $position) );
?>

RESULT: My dog don't love postman

This is a small powerful function that performs its job flawlessly.
blessador at gmail dot com 18-Jun-2013 08:36
<?php
$price = "12000";
$price = substr_replace ($price, ',', -3, 0)";
?>

ensure to remove the double quot  " at the end of substr_replace ($price, ',', -3, 0)" in the above  code to avoid error.
elloromtz at gmail dot com 17-Apr-2010 11:23
It's worth noting that when start and length are both negative -and- the length is less than or equal to start, the length will have the effect of being set as 0.

<?php
substr_replace('eggs','x',-1,-1); //eggxs
substr_replace('eggs','x',-1,-2); //eggxs
substr_replace('eggs','x',-1,-2); //eggxs
?>

Same as:
<?php
substr_replace('eggs','x',-1,0); //eggxs
?>

<?php
substr_replace('huevos','x',-2,-2); //huevxos
substr_replace('huevos','x',-2,-3); //huevxos
substr_replace('huevos','x',-2,-3); //huevxos
?>

Same as:
<?php
substr_replace('huevos','x',-2,0); //huevxos
?>

Another note, if length is negative and start offsets the same position as length, length (yet again) will have the effect as being set as 0. (Of course, as mentioned in the manual, when length is negative it actually represents the position before it)

<?php
substr_replace('abcd', 'x', 0, -4); //xabcd
?>

Same as:
<?php
substr_replace('abcd','x',0,0); //xabcd
?>

<?php
substr_replace('abcd', 'x', 1, -3); //axbcd
?>

Same as:
<?php
substr_replace('abcd', 'x', 1, 0); //axbcd
?>
den dot gierling at web dot de 19-Feb-2010 10:32
My problem was that substr_replace() always added $replacement, so i wrote my own function.
This function only adds $replacement, if substr() took action.
The parameter $length is optional - like substr()'s.
Or I was too stupid using $start and $length...

<?php
function substr_replace_provided($string,$replacement,$start,$length=NULL)
{
    $tmp=substr($string,$start,$length);
    if($string!==$tmp) {
        $string = $tmp.$replacement;
    }
    return $string;
}
?>
kalim dot fleet at gmail dot com 10-Oct-2009 09:49
This will truncate a longer string to a smaller string of specified length while replacing the middle portion with a separator exactly in the middle.

<?php

$longString = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789z.jpg';
$separator = '/.../';
$separatorlength = strlen($separator) ;
$maxlength = 25 - $separatorlength;
$start = $maxlength / 2 ;
$trunc =  strlen($longString) - $maxlength;

echo substr_replace($longString, $separator, $start, $trunc);

//prints "abcdefghij/.../56789z.jpg"

?>
admiral at nuclearpixel dot com 06-Oct-2009 11:54
Hey everyone, I was noticing that there are a lot of ways below that people are using to write their own string truncation functions, but it kinda seemed like a lot of them went a bit too far out to make any sense to a n00b. Not that I am one anymore, but I though I'd add a note on this topic myself, in hopes that it might help others understand things a little better.

Here's a concept that some people don't know about, or remember to use often enough; You can actually pull individual characters out of a string by referencing that string as though it were an array. Example: If I have the string $s = 'cat', I can use $s[0] to actually get out only the first character of that string, 'c'. I use that same principle below, but I just use a loop to iterate through a string and add the characters to the output variable one by one until the $lenth param has been reached, or until the end of the string.

I hope this can help someone out!

-Admiral Potato

<?php

function admiralsTruncate($string, $length){
    settype($string, 'string');
    settype($length, 'integer');
    for($a = 0; $a < $length AND $a < strlen($string); $a++){
        $output .= $string[$a];
    }
    return($output);
}

$my_string = 'cfcd208495d565ef66e7dff9f98764da';

echo admiralsTruncate($my_string, 6);    // outputs: cfcd20

echo '<br>';

echo admiralsTruncate($my_string, 9);    // outputs: cfcd20849

?>
billg AT microsoft.com 07-Apr-2009 07:31
Forget all of the mb_substr_replace() implementations mentioned in this page, they're all buggy.

Here is a version that mimics the behavior of substr_replace() exactly:

<?php

if (function_exists('mb_substr_replace') === false)
{
    function mb_substr_replace($string, $replacement, $start, $length = null, $encoding = null)
    {
        if (extension_loaded('mbstring') === true)
        {
            $string_length = (is_null($encoding) === true) ? mb_strlen($string) : mb_strlen($string, $encoding);
           
            if ($start < 0)
            {
                $start = max(0, $string_length + $start);
            }
           
            else if ($start > $string_length)
            {
                $start = $string_length;
            }
           
            if ($length < 0)
            {
                $length = max(0, $string_length - $start + $length);
            }
           
            else if ((is_null($length) === true) || ($length > $string_length))
            {
                $length = $string_length;
            }
           
            if (($start + $length) > $string_length)
            {
                $length = $string_length - $start;
            }
           
            if (is_null($encoding) === true)
            {
                return mb_substr($string, 0, $start) . $replacement . mb_substr($string, $start + $length, $string_length - $start - $length);
            }
           
            return mb_substr($string, 0, $start, $encoding) . $replacement . mb_substr($string, $start + $length, $string_length - $start - $length, $encoding);
        }
       
        return (is_null($length) === true) ? substr_replace($string, $replacement, $start) : substr_replace($string, $replacement, $start, $length);
    }
}

?>
juichenieder-phnet at yahoo dot co dot uk 25-Mar-2009 10:58
I've just taken a look at the post by ntoniazzi and I have a very small correction to make.

In the second if statement, it should be a triple equals, so:

<?php if ($length === null) ?>

It requires the triple equals, for the case of pure insertion, where $length = 0, the double equals, will catch this, causing the string to be cut short.  I hope this helps someone.
NiX0n at fragfest dot cx 09-Oct-2008 09:41
The preemptive test to see if $string is "too long" shouldn't add strlen($replacement) to $max.  $max should represent the absolute maximum length of string returned.  The size of the $replacement is irrelevant in that determination.

The rest of the function (unchanged below) operates as defined above.  Meaning, the size of the $replacement is subtracted from the $max, so that the returned string is exactly the length of $max.

<?php
function truncate($string, $max = 20, $replacement = '')
{
    if (strlen($string) <= $max)
    {
        return $string;
    }
    $leave = $max - strlen ($replacement);
    return substr_replace($string, $replacement, $leave);
}
?>
spcl dot delivery at gmail dot com 27-Jul-2008 04:14
the version of my predecessor will add $rep even if the string is shorter than max. fixed version:

<?php
function truncate($string, $max = 20, $rep = '')
{
    if (strlen($string) <= ($max + strlen($rep)))
    {
        return $string;
    }
    $leave = $max - strlen ($rep);
    return substr_replace($string, $rep, $leave);
}
?>

To preserve the filename extension you can call it like this:

truncate([filename], 30, '...' . end(explode('.', [filename])))
eblejr AT phrebh DOT com 04-Jun-2008 08:42
PHP version of Java's removeCharAt() function:

<?php
function removeCharAt($str, $int){
  return substr_replace($str,"",$int,1);
}
?>
William Barry 23-Apr-2008 12:18
I recently ran across a situation where I need to strip a heavily nested html list such that only the top level was preserved.  I started with a regular expression solution, but found that I kept matching the wrong closing ul with an outer opening ul.

This was my alternative solution, and it seems to work well:

<?php

function stripNestedLists($str)
{
    $str2 = $str;
    $lastStr = $str2;
   
    do
    {
        // Find the first closing ul
        $cul = strpos($str2, '</ul>');
        $ul = 0;
        $lastUL = 0;
        do
        {
            // Find the next opening ul
            $lastUL = $ul;
            $ul = strpos($str2, '<ul', $ul+1);
        }
        while ($ul !== false && $ul < $cul);
   
        $lastStr = $str2;
        $str2 = substr_replace($str2, '', $lastUL, $cul-$lastUL+5);
        $str2 = trim($str2);
    }
    while (strlen($str2) > 0);
   
    return $lastStr;
}

?>

Hope this helps someone.
jaimthorn at yahoo dot com 25-Mar-2008 10:53
I recently needed a routine that would remove the characters in one string from another, like the regex

<?php
   $result = preg_replace("/[$chars]/", "", $string);
?>

and I needed it to be fast, and accept pretty much all input.  The regex above won't work when strlen($chars) == 0.  I came up with this, admittedly pretty horrible-looking code, that is quite fast:

<?php

function RemoveChars($string, $chars)
{
    return isset($chars{0}) ? str_replace($chars{0}, "", strtr($string, $chars, str_pad($chars{0}, strlen($chars), $chars{0}))) : $string;
}

?>

According to my own measurements, the regex in ONLY faster for when strlen($chars) == 1; for longer strings, my routine is faster.  What does it do?  Let's say you want to remove the period, the comma and the exclamation mark from a string, like so:
$result = RemoveChars("Isn't this, like, totally neat..!?", ".?!");
The str_pad function creates a string equal in length to the string that contains the character to be removed, but consisting only of the first character of that string:
The input is ".,!"
The output is "..."
The strtr function translates all characters in the string-to-be-processed ("Isn't this...") that also occur in the input (".,!") to the characters in the same position in the output ("...").  In other words:
Isn't this, like, totally neat..!?
becomes
Isn't this. like. totally neat....
Finally, the first character from the input (".,!") which happens to be, again, the period, is removed from that string by the str_replace call:
Isn't this like totally neat?
The function needs to check is $chars has at least one character, or else the str_pad function will fail.  If it's empty, then the unprocessed string is returned.
ntoniazzi at sqli dot com 14-Feb-2008 01:07
Almost... In the previous note, change this :
<?php
    function mb_substr_replace($string, $replacement, $start, $length=null, $encoding=null) {
        if ($encoding == null) $encoding = mb_internal_encoding();
        if($start < 0) $start = mb_strlen($string) + $start;
    [...]
?>
alishahnovin at hotmail dot com 07-Aug-2007 12:56
I like the truncate function below...however, I found a few issues. Particularly if you have content that may have any kind of punctuation in it (?, !, ?!?, --, ..., .., ;, etc.)

The older function would end up looking like "blah blah?..." or "blah blah,..." which doesn't look so nice to me...

Here's my fix. It removes all trailing punctuation (that you include in the $punctuation string below) and then adds an ellipse. So even if it has an ellipse with 3 dots, 2 dots, 4 dots, it'll be removed, then re-added.

<?php
function truncate($text,$numb,$etc = "...") {
$text = html_entity_decode($text, ENT_QUOTES);
if (strlen($text) > $numb) {
$text = substr($text, 0, $numb);
$text = substr($text,0,strrpos($text," "));

$punctuation = ".!?:;,-"; //punctuation you want removed

$text = (strspn(strrev($text),  $punctuation)!=0)
        ?
        substr($text, 0, -strspn(strrev($text),  $punctuation))
        :
$text;

$text = $text.$etc;
}
$text = htmlentities($text, ENT_QUOTES);
return $text;
}
?>

I also needed a sort of "middle" truncate. The above function truncates around the end, but if you want to truncate around the middle (ie "Hello this is a long string." --> "Hello this ... long string.") you can use this (requires the truncate function):

<?php
function mtruncate($text, $numb, $etc = " ... ") {
    $first_part = truncate(truncate($text, strlen($text)/2, ""), $numb/2, "");
    $second_part = truncate(strrev(truncate(strrev($text), strlen($text)/2, "")), $numb/2, "");
    return $first_part.$etc.$second_part;
}
?>
chuayw2000 at hotmail dot com 09-Dec-2005 03:33
I don't know if this function is multibyte safe but I've written a function that will do the same in multibyte mode.

<?php
//Check to see if it exists in case PHP has this function later
if (!function_exists("mb_substr_replace")){
   //Same parameters as substr_replace with the extra encoding parameter.
    function mb_substr_replace($string,$replacement,$start,$length=null,$encoding = null){
        if ($encoding == null){
            if ($length == null){
                return mb_substr($string,0,$start).$replacement;
            }
            else{
                return mb_substr($string,0,$start).$replacement.mb_substr($string,$start + $length);
            }
        }
        else{
            if ($length == null){
                return mb_substr($string,0,$start,$encoding).$replacement;
            }
            else{
                return mb_substr($string,0,$start,$encoding). $replacement. mb_substr($string,$start + $length,mb_strlen($string,$encoding),$encoding);
            }
        }
    }
}
?>
hermes at andycostell dot com 27-Aug-2005 11:48
I suggest changing the function suggested by Guru Evi slightly. I found that it doesn't work as written here.

Original:
function add_3dots($string,$repl,$start,$limit) {
   if(strlen($string) > $limit) {
       return substr_replace(strip_tags($string),$repl,$start,$limit);
   } else {
       return $string;
   };
};

I suggest:
function add_3dots($string,$repl,$limit) {
       if(strlen($string) > $limit) {
           return substr_replace(strip_tags($string),$repl,$limit-strlen($repl));
       } else {
           return $string;
       }
    }

Usage:

$max_length=10;//the max number of characters you want to display
$too_long_string="BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH etc.";//the string you want to shorten (if it's longer than the $limit)
$shorter_string=add_3_dots($too_long_string,"...",$max_length);
Guru Evi 13-Jul-2005 12:44
If your string is not long enough to meet what you specify in start and length then the replacement string is added towards the end of the string.

I wanted to replace the end of the string with ... if the string was too long to display (for instance article preview on a website). The problem was that my string was sometimes not that long and it still added the replacement string. So I wrote a function to replace substr_replace in my website:

function add_3dots($string,$repl,$start,$limit) {
    if(strlen($string) > $limit) {
        return substr_replace(strip_tags($string),$repl,$start,$limit);
    } else {
        return $string;
    };
};

I use strip_tags to strip out the HTML otherwise you might get a screwed up HTML (when a tags open in the string, but because you cut-off it doesn't)
danieldoorduin at hotmail dot com 10-Dec-2004 02:48
Using substr_replace() can be avoided by using substr() instead:

<?
$string = substr($string, 0, $position_needle).$replace.substr($string, $position_needle+$length_needle);
?>

This can be useful when you need to replace parts of multibyte strings like strings encoded with utf-8. There isn't a multibute variant for substr_replace(), but for php substr() there is mb_substr(). For more information on multibyte strings see http://nl3.php.net/manual/en/ref.mbstring.php
dmron 17-Jun-2004 04:34
Regarding "...", even the short functions are too long and complicated, and there's no need to use substr_replace. substr() works better and is  way faster prior to 4.3.5 as the below poster stated.

function shorten( $str, $num = 100 ) {
  if( strlen( $str ) > $num ) $str = substr( $str, 0, $num ) . "...";
  return $str;
}
tony at outshine dot com 10-May-2004 02:25
The comment by geniusdex is a good one.  Short, simple functions are the best.  But if the string is not longer than the limit set, NOTHING is returned.  Here is the function re-done to always return a string:

<?php
function dot($str, $len, $dots = "...") {
    if (strlen($str) > $len) {
        $dotlen = strlen($dots);
        $str = substr_replace($str, $dots, $len - $dotlen);
    }
    return $str;
}
?>
geniusdex ( at ) brz ( dot ) nu 23-Feb-2004 07:33
This is my version of making dotted strings:

<?php
function dot($str, $len, $dots = "...") {
    if (strlen($str) > $len) {
        $dotlen = strlen($dots);
        substr_replace($str, $dots, $len - $dotlen);
    }
}
?>
Thijs Wijnmaalen (thijs[at]nllinux.nl) 20-Jan-2004 11:05
I wrote a function that you can use for example in combination with a search script to cut off the articles that are too long.

<?php
function substr_index($text, $maxChars = 20, $splitter
= '...') {

$theReturn = $text;
$lastSpace = false;

if (strlen($text) > $maxChars) {
$theReturn = substr($text, 0, $maxChars - 1);

if (in_array(substr($text, $maxChars - 1, 1),
array(' ', '.', '!', '?'))) {
$theReturn .= substr($text, $maxChars, 1);
} else {
$theReturn = substr($theReturn, 0, $maxChars -
strlen($splitter));
$lastSpace = strrpos($theReturn, ' ');

if ($lastSpace !== false) {
$theReturn = substr($theReturn, 0, $lastSpace);
}

if (in_array(substr($theReturn, -1, 1), array(','))) {
$theReturn = substr($theReturn, 0, -1);
}
$theReturn .= $splitter;
}
}
return $theReturn;
}
?>
david at ethinkn dot com 05-Jul-2003 05:36
Here is a simple function to shorten a string and add an ellipsis

<?php

/**
 * truncate() Simple function to shorten a string and add an ellipsis
 *
 * @param string $string Origonal string
 * @param integer $max Maximum length
 * @param string $rep Replace with... (Default = '' - No elipsis -)
 * @return string
 * @author David Duong
 **/
function truncate ($string, $max = 50, $rep = '') {
    $leave = $max - strlen ($rep);
    return substr_replace($string, $rep, $leave);
}

echo truncate ('akfhslakdhglksjdgh', 10, '...');
// Returns akfhsla... (10 chrs)

?>
thomasNOSPAM at sportentranceNOSPAM dot com 08-Oct-2002 03:01
To abbreviate links into '...' if they outreach a certain amount of space; use the preg_replace function instead.

For instance you grabbed the headlines of a news site for use on your own page and the lines are to long:

asuming the raw material is stored in $unedited;

$edited = preg_replace("/(>)([[:print:]]{52,})(<)/e", "'\\1'.substr_replace('\\2 ', '...', '48').'\\3'", $unedited);
echo $edited;

This will shorten strings longer than 52 characters into 51 characters, with the last being three dots...
klaas at group94 dot com 13-Feb-2002 10:38
THE DOT DOT DOT ISSUE

PROBLEM:
You want to abbreviate a string.
E.g. You want "BritneySpears" to show as "BritneySpe...", being only the ten first characters followed by "..."

SOLUTION:
<?
$oRIGINAL = "BritneySpears";
$sHORTER = substr_replace($oRIGINAL, '...', 10);
echo ($sHORTER);
?>

This will result in BritneySpe...
28-Sep-2001 08:30
If you would like to remove characters from the start or end of a string, try the substr() function.

For example, to remove the last three characters from a string:
$string = "To be or not to be.";
$string = substr ($string, 0, -3);
mrbrown8 at juno dot com 16-Apr-2001 12:16
Just to add to the examples, if replacement is longer than length, only the length number of chars are removed from string and all of replacement is put in its place, and therefor strlen($string) is inreased.

$var = 'ABCDEFGH:/MNRPQR/';
/*  Should return ABCDEFGH:/testingRPQR/   */
echo substr_replace ($var, 'testing', 10, 2);