Get first letter from string..

[doggo18]

How do I get the first letter of a string? I can't seem to figure it out...

for example: '23V6', I want to get the 'V'

Thanks for reading

[l3vi]

I was having the same problem yesterday. Heres how:

First, define the function you will use:

PHP Code:

function str_split($string) {
   for ($x = 0; $x < strlen($string); $x++) {
       $array[$x] = substr($string, $x, 1);
   }
   return $array;
} 


Then, do the code to get the string:

PHP Code:

       $text = "23V6";
       $string = str_split($text, 1);
       $string = $string[3];

       echo $string; 


That should do it. The number in the brackets is the number of the letter you want from the string...

[doggo18]

Fast response Thanks!

And now why didn't I think of that..

[raf]

I don't get it.

First off, i don't understand that function at all. It's completely unnescecary, because

PHP Code:

$text='23V45';
$string=$text{3}; 


would give me exacly the same, without needing the function to first turn the string into an array of 1 character elements.

Then i don't understand how all this gets you the first letter.
I mean you here hardcode the position.
In fact, it is wrong, because $string[3] will return '6' because it's a zero based array.

I thought you wanted to dynamically get the first letter from any string, or is it always the third character?

Anyway, the dynamic version would be something like:

PHP Code:

$text = "23V6"; 
for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($text); $i++) { 
    if (eregi("[a-z]", $text{$i})) {
       $string = $text{$i};
       break(); 
   }
} 


[doggo18]

Well I did want to do it dynamically.. but his answer gave me the insight to make the loop myself... I didn't want to bother you lot with it anymore since I could figure it out with the part I got from levi.. but I will ofcourse update it with the better solution you posted raf.. it's way more elegant than mine hehe

[l3vi]

Oops, forgot to post that that was for older versions of php that dont support the str_split command

[mordred]

You don't necessarily need to define a new function for this problem:

PHP Code:

preg_match('/^[^a-z]*([a-z])/im', $string, $matches); 


Using the code above, the first letter in a string will appear in $matches[1].

[firepages]

and for no other reason whatsoever other than to be contrary ...

PHP Code:

<?
echo substr( $text,( strspn( $text , "1234567890" ) +1 ) ,1 ) ; 
?>

ok ok I admit it , it's cos I can't do regex