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To: Mike Schinkel <mike@newclarity.net>, Sara Golemon <pollita@php.net>,
 "G. P. B." <george.banyard@gmail.com>,
 Hamza Ahmad <office.hamzaahmad@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
References: <012901d7683a$446a7ba0$cd3f72e0$@gmail.com>
 <CAESVnVrFX9MWBQZPnkas+hJBgatOsuT_g1wpOcDstcD09+qASg@mail.gmail.com>
 <C58053AC-0692-4E40-AEFB-D60893665588@newclarity.net>
Message-ID: <7e2b946f-c302-5350-a6e6-1e06802c95a5@gmx.de>
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2021 23:28:26 +0200
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Introduce str_left/right In 8.1
From: cmbecker69@gmx.de ("Christoph M. Becker")

On 23.06.2021 at 21:10, Mike Schinkel wrote:

> Replying to both Sara's and G.P.B.'s emails below:
>
>> On Jun 23, 2021, at 12:48 PM, Sara Golemon <pollita@php.net> wrote:
>>
>> Using some context, I would assume you mean this:
>>
>> function str_left(string $str, int $len): string {
>>  return substr($str, 0, $len);
>> }
>>
>> function str_right(string $str, int $len): string {
>>  return substr($str, -$len);
>> }
>>
>> If that's the case, then.... why?  As you can see, the existing
>> functionality available is trivial to write.
>> <snip>
>> Am I misunderstanding what these proposed functions should do, or am I
>> underestimating the difficulty of typing a zero or negative sign on cer=
tain
>> keyboards?
>
> I can't speak for Hamza, but one reason I can see for why =E2=80=94 at l=
east for str_right() =E2=80=94 is that using a negative index might not oc=
cur to many people. Hell, I even forgot substr() worked that way until you=
 mentioned it.
>
> But, since objective evidence is better than opinion, a non-trivial numb=
er of people have searched how to get the last 'n' characters from a strin=
g in PHP, found the answer, and then went to the effort to upvote it on St=
ackOverflow.  If the 90-9-1 rule holds, then that's about 6200 people who =
have been confused, searched and found the answer here:
>
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10542310/how-can-i-get-the-last-7-ch=
aracters-of-a-php-string <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10542310/how=
-can-i-get-the-last-7-characters-of-a-php-string>

substr() is about bytes, not characters.  They all may have upvoted the
wrong answer.  The only correct answer has just 17 upvotes.

Christoph