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Full String Format List

The String Format functionality in DTO provides an easy way to modify and transform strings without extra hassle. Whether you need to clean up text, adjust capitalization, or apply formatting, these built-in methods let you do it seamlessly while keeping everything structured and consistent.

How It Works​

With Traverse Collection​

echo $user->firstname->strTrim()->strUcFirst();
// Result: John

As Singleton Helper​

use MaplePHP\DTO\Format\Str;

echo Str::value('john')->trim()->ucFirst();
// Result: John

For more transformation options like strStripTags and strUcFirst, check the Transformation section in the navigation below.

Full Feature List​

position

The position method finds the position of the first occurrence of a substring in a string. It supports multibyte functionality, ensuring proper handling of UTF-8 and other encodings. If your environment does not support multibyte string functions, it provides a polyfill.

Arguments

Takes a substring $needle to search for, an optional $offset to define where to start searching, and an optional $encoding to specify the character encoding.

$user = Traverse::value(["email" => "john.doe@gmail.com"]);

echo $user->email->strPosition('.'); 

// Result: 4

positionLast

The positionLast method finds the position of the last occurrence of a substring in a string. It supports multibyte functionality, ensuring proper handling of UTF-8 and other encodings. If your environment does not support multibyte string functions, it provides a polyfill.

Arguments

Takes a substring $needle to search for, an optional $offset to define where to start searching, and an optional $encoding to specify the character encoding.

$user = Traverse::value(["email" => "john.doe@gmail.com"]);

echo $user->email->strPositionLast('.');

// Result: 14

strlen

The strlen method returns the length of a string. It supports multibyte functionality, ensuring proper handling of UTF-8 and other encodings. If your environment does not support multibyte string functions, it provides a polyfill.

Arguments

Takes an optional $encoding to specify the character encoding.

$user = Traverse::value(["username" => "johndoe"]);

echo $user->username->strStrlen();  

// Result: 7

contains

The contains method checks if a string contains a given substring and returns true or false.

Arguments

Takes a substring $needle to search for.

$user = Traverse::value(["email" => "john.doe@gmail.com"]);

echo $user->email->strContains('@gmail.com');  

// Result: true

startsWith

The startsWith method checks if a string starts with a given substring and returns true or false.

Arguments

Takes a substring $needle to check against the beginning of the string.

$user = Traverse::value(["email" => "john.doe@gmail.com"]);

echo $user->email->strStartsWith('john');  

// Result: true

endsWith

The endsWith method checks if a string ends with a given substring and returns true or false.

Arguments

Takes a substring $needle to check against the end of the string.

$user = Traverse::value(["email" => "john.doe@gmail.com"]);

echo $user->email->strEndsWith('@gmail.com');  

// Result: true

getContains

The getContains method checks if a string contains a given substring. If found, it returns the substring; otherwise, it returns false.

Arguments

Takes a substring $needle to search for.

$user = Traverse::value(["email" => "john.doe@gmail.com"]);

echo $user->email->strGetContains('@gmail.com');  

// Result: @gmail.com

getStartsWith

The getStartsWith method checks if a string starts with a given substring. If found, it returns the substring; otherwise, it returns false.

Arguments

Takes a substring $needle to check against the beginning of the string.

$user = Traverse::value(["email" => "john.doe@gmail.com"]);

echo $user->email->strGetStartsWith('john');

// Result: john

getEndsWith

The getEndsWith method checks if a string ends with a given substring. If found, it returns the substring; otherwise, it returns false.

Arguments

Takes a substring $needle to check against the end of the string.

$user = Traverse::value(["email" => "john.doe@gmail.com"]);

echo $user->email->strGetEndsWith('@gmail.com');  

// Result: @gmail.com

excerpt

The excerpt method shortens a string to a specified length and optionally appends an ending if the text is truncated. It supports multibyte functionality, ensuring proper handling of UTF-8 and other encodings.

Arguments

Takes a $length to define the total character limit, an optional $ending to append if the text is shortened, and an optional $encoding to specify the character encoding.

$user = Traverse::value(["bio" => "John is a software developer with over 10 years of experience in web development."]);

echo $user->bio->strExcerpt(40);  

// Result: John is a software developer with over...

nl2br

The nl2br method converts new line characters (\n) in a string to HTML <br> tags, making it suitable for rendering in HTML.

$user = Traverse::value(["bio" => "John is a developer.\nHe loves coding."]);

echo $user->bio->strNl2br();  

// Result: John is a developer.<br>He loves coding.

addTrailingSlash

The addTrailingSlash method ensures that a string always ends with a trailing slash (/). It only adds the slash if it does not already exist.

$user = Traverse::value(["path" => "https://example.com"]);

echo $user->path->strAddTrailingSlash();  

// Result: https://example.com/

trimTrailingSlash

The trimTrailingSlash method removes a trailing slash (/) from the end of a string if it exists.

$user = Traverse::value(["path" => "https://example.com/"]);

echo $user->path->strTrimTrailingSlash();  

// Result: https://example.com

stripTags

The stripTags method removes HTML tags from a string while optionally allowing specific tags to be retained.

Arguments

Takes an optional $whitelist containing allowed HTML tags (e.g., <em><strong>). If empty, all tags are removed.

$user = Traverse::value(["bio" => "<strong>John</strong> is a <em>developer</em>."]);

echo $user->bio->strStripTags("<em>");  

// Result: John is a <em>developer</em>.

encode

The encode method converts special characters to HTML entities, preventing HTML injection and ensuring safe output.

Arguments

Takes an optional $flag to specify encoding behavior (default: ENT_QUOTES) and an optional $encoding to define the character encoding (default: UTF-8).

$user = Traverse::value(["comment" => "<script>alert('XSS');</script>"]);

echo $user->comment->strEncode();  

// Result: &lt;script&gt;alert(&#039;XSS&#039;);&lt;/script&gt;

decode

The decode method converts HTML entities back to their corresponding characters.

Arguments

Takes an optional $flag to specify decoding behavior (default: ENT_QUOTES).

$user = Traverse::value(["comment" => "&lt;strong&gt;Hello&lt;/strong&gt;"]);

echo $user->comment->strDecode();  

// Result: <strong>Hello</strong>

sanitizeIdentifiers

The sanitizeIdentifiers method removes any character that is not a letter, number, underscore, or dash. It can be used to sanitize SQL identifiers that should be enclosed in backticks.

$user = Traverse::value(["column" => "user-name!@#"]);

echo $user->column->strSanitizeIdentifiers();  

// Result: user-name

clearBreaks

The clearBreaks method removes soft breaks, including line breaks (\n), carriage returns (\r), form feed (\f), and vertical tabs (\v).

$user = Traverse::value(["bio" => "John Doe\nSoftware Developer\r\nLoves coding."]);

echo $user->bio->strClearBreaks();  

// Result: John Doe Software Developer Loves coding.

normalizeSpaces

The normalizeSpaces method removes all excessive whitespace, including spaces, tabs, newlines, carriage returns, and form feed characters, replacing them with a single space.

$user = Traverse::value(["bio" => "John    Doe\tSoftware    Developer\nLoves   coding."]);

echo $user->bio->strNormalizeSpaces();  

// Result: John Doe Software Developer Loves coding.

normalizeSeparators

The normalizeSeparators method replaces multiple spaces, hyphens, and underscores with a single space, ensuring clean and consistent word separation.

$user = Traverse::value(["title" => "John---Doe__Software    Developer"]);

echo $user->title->strNormalizeSeparators();  

// Result: John Doe Software Developer

entityEncode

The entityEncode method converts special characters to HTML entities, making the text safe for rendering in an HTML document.

Arguments

Takes an optional $flags parameter (default: ENT_QUOTES | ENT_SUBSTITUTE), an optional $encoding for character encoding, and a $doubleEncode flag to determine whether already-encoded entities should be re-encoded (default: true).

$user = Traverse::value(["comment" => "<strong>Hello & Welcome!</strong>"]);

echo $user->comment->strEntityEncode();  

// Result: &lt;strong&gt;Hello &amp; Welcome!&lt;/strong&gt;

entityDecode

The entityDecode method converts HTML entities back to their corresponding characters.

Arguments

Takes an optional $flags parameter (default: ENT_QUOTES | ENT_SUBSTITUTE) and an optional $encoding for character encoding.

$user = Traverse::value(["comment" => "&lt;strong&gt;Hello &amp; Welcome!&lt;/strong&gt;"]);

echo $user->comment->strEntityDecode();  

// Result: <strong>Hello & Welcome!</strong>

trim

The trim method removes specified characters from the beginning and end of a string.

Arguments

Takes an optional $characters parameter defining which characters to trim (default: spaces, newlines, tabs, vertical tabs, and null bytes).

$user = Traverse::value(["input" => "   Hello World!   "]);

echo $user->input->strTrim();  

// Result: Hello World!

ltrim

The ltrim method removes specified characters from the beginning of a string.

Arguments

Takes an optional $characters parameter defining which characters to trim (default: spaces, newlines, tabs, vertical tabs, and null bytes).

$user = Traverse::value(["input" => "   Hello World!"]);

echo $user->input->strLtrim();  

// Result: Hello World!

rtrim

The rtrim method removes specified characters from the end of a string.

Arguments

Takes an optional $characters parameter defining which characters to trim (default: spaces, newlines, tabs, vertical tabs, and null bytes).

$user = Traverse::value(["input" => "Hello World!   "]);

echo $user->input->strRtrim();  

// Result: Hello World!

toLower

The toLower method converts all characters in a string to lowercase.

$user = Traverse::value(["name" => "John Doe"]);

echo $user->name->strToLower();  

// Result: john doe

toUpper

The toUpper method converts all characters in a string to uppercase.

$user = Traverse::value(["name" => "John Doe"]);

echo $user->name->strToUpper();  

// Result: JOHN DOE

ucWords

The ucWords method capitalizes the first letter of every word in a string.

$user = Traverse::value(["title" => "john doe, software developer"]);

echo $user->title->strUcWords();  

// Result: John Doe, Software Developer

ucFirst

The ucFirst method capitalizes the first letter of a string.

$user = Traverse::value(["sentence" => "hello world!"]);

echo $user->sentence->strUcFirst();  

// Result: Hello world!

pad

The pad method pads a string to a specified length using a given string.

Arguments

Takes a required $length to define the total string length, an optional $padString to specify the padding characters (default: space), and an optional $padType to determine the padding direction (STR_PAD_RIGHT by default).

$user = Traverse::value(["code" => "42"]);

echo $user->code->strPad(5, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT);  

// Result: 00042

leadingZero

The leadingZero method ensures a string is at least two characters long by padding it with a leading zero if necessary.

$user = Traverse::value(["day" => "5"]);

echo $user->day->strLeadingZero();  

// Result: 05

replaceSpaces

The replaceSpaces method replaces all spaces in a string with the specified replacement character.

Arguments

Takes an optional $replaceWith parameter to define the replacement character (default: -).

$user = Traverse::value(["title" => "Hello World"]);

echo $user->title->strReplaceSpaces("_");  

// Result: Hello_World

formatEmail

The formatEmail method trims whitespace, normalizes accents, and converts the email address to lowercase for consistency.

$user = Traverse::value(["email" => "  Jôhn.Dœ@GMAIL.com  "]);

echo $user->email->strFormatEmail();  

// Result: john.doe@gmail.com

slug

The slug method converts a string into a URL-friendly format by removing unwanted characters, normalizing accents, and replacing spaces with hyphens.

$user = Traverse::value(["title" => "  Héllo Wôrld! Welcome to PHP.  "]);

echo $user->title->strSlug();  

// Result: hello-world-welcome-to-php

normalizeAccents

The normalizeAccents method replaces accented and special characters with their ASCII counterparts for better consistency in text processing.

$user = Traverse::value(["name" => "Jörg Åström"]);

echo $user->name->strNormalizeAccents();  

// Result: Jorg Astrom

urlDecode

The urlDecode method decodes a URL-encoded string, converting percent-encoded characters back to their original form.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "Hello%20World%21"]);

echo $user->url->strUrlDecode();  

// Result: Hello World!

urlEncode

The urlEncode method encodes a string for use in a URL by converting special characters into percent-encoded format.

$user = Traverse::value(["query" => "Hello World!"]);

echo $user->query->strUrlEncode();  

// Result: Hello%20World%21

rawUrlEncode

The rawUrlEncode method encodes a string for use in a URL, similar to urlEncode, but preserves spaces as %20 instead of +.

$user = Traverse::value(["query" => "Hello World!"]);

echo $user->query->strRawUrlEncode();  

// Result: Hello%20World%21

rawUrlDecode

The rawUrlDecode method decodes a raw URL-encoded string, converting percent-encoded characters back to their original form.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "Hello%20World%21"]);

echo $user->url->strRawUrlDecode();  

// Result: Hello World!

replace

The replace method replaces occurrences of a given string or array of strings with a specified replacement value.

Arguments

Takes $find as the value(s) to search for and $replace as the value(s) to replace with.

$user = Traverse::value(["text" => "Hello World"]);

echo $user->text->strReplace("World", "PHP");  

// Result: Hello PHP

normalizeUrlEncoding

The normalizeUrlEncoding method decodes and then re-encodes a URL string to ensure consistent URL encoding format.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "Hello%2BWorld%21"]);

echo $user->url->strNormalizeUrlEncoding();  

// Result: Hello%20World%21

explodeCamelCase

The explodeCamelCase method splits a camelCase or PascalCase string into an array of words.

$user = Traverse::value(["variable" => "helloWorldExample"]);

echo json_encode($user->variable->strExplodeCamelCase());  

// Result: ["hello", "World", "Example"]

getUrlPath

The getUrlPath method extracts the path component from a given URL.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "https://example.com/blog/article?query=123"]);

echo $user->url->strGetUrlPath();  

// Result: /blog/article

getUrlScheme

The getUrlScheme method extracts the scheme (protocol) from a given URL.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "https://example.com/blog/article"]);

echo $user->url->strGetUrlScheme();  

// Result: https

getUrlHost

The getUrlHost method extracts the host (domain) from a given URL.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "https://sub.example.com/blog/article"]);

echo $user->url->strGetUrlHost();  

// Result: sub.example.com

getUrlPort

The getUrlPort method extracts the port number from a given URL. If no port is specified, it returns an empty string.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "https://example.com:8080/blog/article"]);

echo $user->url->strGetUrlPort();  

// Result: 8080

getUrlUser

The getUrlUser method extracts the username from a given URL if authentication credentials are present.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "https://john@example.com/blog/article"]);

echo $user->url->strGetUrlUser();  

// Result: john

getUrlPassword

The getUrlPassword method extracts the password from a given URL if authentication credentials are present.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "https://john:secret@example.com/blog/article"]);

echo $user->url->strGetUrlPassword();  

// Result: secret

getUrlQuery

The getUrlQuery method extracts the query string from a given URL.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "https://example.com/blog/article?search=php&sort=asc"]);

echo $user->url->strGetUrlQuery();  

// Result: search=php&sort=asc

getUrlFragment

The getUrlFragment method extracts the fragment (anchor) from a given URL.

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "https://example.com/blog/article#comments"]);

echo $user->url->strGetUrlFragment();  

// Result: comments

getUrlParts

The getUrlParts method extracts multiple specified parts from a given URL and returns them as an array.

Arguments

Takes an array $parts specifying which URL components to extract (e.g., ['scheme', 'host', 'path']).

$user = Traverse::value(["url" => "https://john:secret@example.com:8080/blog/article?search=php#comments"]);

echo json_encode($user->url->strGetUrlParts(['scheme', 'host', 'path']));  

// Result: ["https", "example.com", "/blog/article"]

getDirname

The getDirname method extracts the directory path from a given file path.

$user = Traverse::value(["path" => "/var/www/html/index.php"]);

echo $user->path->strGetDirname();  

// Result: /var/www/html

escape

The escape method protects against XSS by escaping special characters in a string.

$user = Traverse::value(["comment" => "<script>alert('XSS');</script>"]);

echo $user->comment->strEscape();  

// Result: &lt;script&gt;alert(&#039;XSS&#039;);&lt;/script&gt;