How to get the first word of a sentence in PHP?

Question

I want to extract the first word of a variable from a string. For example, take this input:

<?php $myvalue = 'Test me more'; ?>

The resultant output should be Test, which is the first word of the input. How can I do this?

Solution 1

You can use the explode function as follows:

$myvalue = 'Test me more';
$arr = explode(' ',trim($myvalue));
echo $arr[0]; // will print Test

Another example:

$sentence = 'Hello World this is PHP';
$abbreviation = explode(' ', trim($sentence ))[0];
echo $abbreviation // will print Hello

Solution 2

There is a string function (strtok) which can be used to split a string into smaller strings (tokens) based on some separator(s). For the purposes of this thread, the first word (defined as anything before the first space character) of Test me more can be obtained by tokenizing the string on the space character.

<?php
$value = "Test me more";
echo strtok($value, " "); // Test
?>

For more details and examples, see the strtok PHP manual page.

Solution 3

If you have PHP 5.3

$myvalue = 'Test me more';
echo strstr($myvalue, ' ', true);

note that if $myvalue is a string with one word strstr doesn't return anything in this case. A solution could be to append a space to the test-string:

echo strstr( $myvalue . ' ', ' ', true );

That will always return the first word of the string, even if the string has just one word in it

The alternative is something like:

$i = strpos($myvalue, ' ');
echo $i !== false ? $myvalue : substr( $myvalue, 0, $i );

Or using explode, which has so many answers using it I won't bother pointing out how to do it.

Solution 4

You could do

echo current(explode(' ',$myvalue));

Solution 5

Even though it is little late, but PHP has one better solution for this:

$words=str_word_count($myvalue, 1);
echo $words[0];

View more solutions

Comments

[caw]

You might find s($str)->words()[0] helpful, as found in this standalone library.

[mickmackusa]

A small table of potential fringe cases when getting the substring before the first occurrence of a character: stackoverflow.com/a/68123370/2943403

[Gordon]

+1 for not using explode or regex (both inappropriate imho). Another alternative would be to use strstr with str_replace, replacing the part after the needle from strstr with nothing.

[Leo]

NOTE- split() is DEPRECATED from 5.3 >

[trejder]

Worth noting, that although strstr is available in PHP since 4.3.0 it was not before 5.3.0, when the optional parameter before_needle (which you're using in this example) was added. Just a notice, because I was confused, why you state, that this example needs 5.3.0.

[Alberto Fontana]

Briliiant! Better than the original solution

[zanderwar]

trim($input) would suffice in this instance :P

[patrick]

Note that if you set myvalue to a single word strstr doesn't return anything in this case! A solution could be to always add a space at the end of the string that's tested so it always comes back with the first word, even if that's the only word in the string!

[Admin]

Assuming only spaces between words is risky, I'd also include tabs.

[Elly Post]

Using modern PHP syntax you can just do explode(' ',trim($myvalue))[0]

[Cédric Françoys]

1 line code for any PHP version : list($firstword) = explode(' ', trim($myvalue), 1);

[Sdlion]

@CédricFrançoys the limit parameter should be 2 since it has to include the last element that contains the rest of the string; 1 would just return the very same string. Unless a big array would be created I would go with Elliot version for a one liner.

[Admin]

What if you want the second word as well as from RSS NewYorkTimes - media:credit is - <media:credit>Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times</media:credit> . I only want Dmitry Kostyukov - How do I do that? =)

[pbarney]

@xxxx, do explode(" ",strip_tags("<media:credit>Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times</media:credit>"))[0]

[Wes]

This should be the first answer. It only returns the first word like he wanted in a cleaner way.

[Jay Harris]

Good solution but in the php manual, it warns: This function may return Boolean FALSE, but may also return a non-Boolean value which evaluates to FALSE.

[Epoc]

I'm using PHP on a daily basis for at least 6 years and I didn't ever heard about this function until now

[Filnor]

@j4k3 Please remember to be nice.

[j4k3]

If you're looking for the most inefficient way to get the first word in a string, this is a good solution. In all other cases you're better off with literally every other answer here. How does this get any upvotes?

[MarcoZen]

RobertPitt -> It would be helpful if you gave an example where strtok failed with a word boundary as compared to a preg_split.

[Eaten by a Grue]

shouldn't that be echo $i === false ? $myvalue : substr( $myvalue, 0, $i );

[patrick]

This would be the best answer, since it also works for "one, two and three" (the accepted answer would echo "one,")

[patrick]

This is not the best answer! It echoes "one," if the string is "one, two three". The best answer is lower down, @Ciul

[Arnold Daniels]

strtok is a weird and dangerous function that holds a global state. Using this function should be discouraged.

[Dev Null]

Doesn't work. try this with this string: "\n\nNextWord". This answer assumes all words are separate by spaces only.

[Dev Null]

Doesn't work. try this with this string: "\n\nNextWord". This answer assumes all words are separate by spaces only.

[Dev Null]

Doesn't work. try this with this string: "\n\nNextWord". This answer assumes all words are separate by spaces only.

[Dev Null]

Doesn't work. try this with this string: "\n\nNextWord". This answer assumes all words are separate by spaces only.

[Dev Null]

Doesn't work. try this with this string: "\n\nNextWord". This answer assumes all words are separate by spaces only.

[Dev Null]

Doesn't work. try this with this string: "\n\nNextWord". This answer assumes all words are separate by spaces only.

[wheelmaker]

yes, this does assume a "sentence" is constructed of words separated by spaces

[Dev Null]

I think you missed the point. I upper-cased "W" in word so you could read it easier. Maybe this will make more sense to you - "\n\nThis won't work". The above code will think the first word is "\n\nThis"

[Philipp]

Words do not end at the first space, but at the first character, that's not a letter. For eample "Hey, how are you? (returns "Hey,") or Stop! Now (returns "Stop!)

[mickmackusa]

I would not capture the \s*. I would not write [^\s] because \S is simpler. I would not capture the .* at the end. This answer is doing too many unnecessary things for a such a small snippet.

[mickmackusa]

Why use i pattern modifier if the character class has [a-zA-Z] or if you are using \w? What should the output be if the first "word" contains an apostrophe or hyphen? Food for thought. This unexplained answer is teaching unnecessary things.

[mickmackusa]

There is no limit to the split(), so this technique will be over-functioning. It only needs to explode on the first occurring space to do the job properly.

[mickmackusa]

This answer seems more like a comment. It seems to be trying to weigh-in on other answers. I don't know how extract() is useful here. preg_ functions will be slower, but they offer more robust techniques that can weed out unwanted characters in fringe cases.

[mickmackusa]

This answer does not limit the number of explosions, so it is potentially doing more work than what is required.

[mickmackusa]

There is no reason to wrap \s in a character class.

[mickmackusa]

The $ end of string metacharacter is not necessary for this pattern to work properly.

[mickmackusa]

I would be happier if I saw explode() benchmarks that properly use the limit argument of 2, so that no unnecessary exploding is done.

[mickmackusa]

This late, redundant, unexplained answer missed a great opportunity to limit the number of explosions.

[mickmackusa]

The original question's sample data does not contain any leading newline characters.

[mickmackusa]

Also, if trimming is going to be done, it is logical to only ltrim().