What are the modern PHP 8 string functions str_contains, str_starts_with, and str_ends_with?

Short answer

They are intuitive built-in functions that check whether a string contains another string and return a boolean, replacing complex and error-prone strpos checks.

Explanation

Previously, checking a string prefix required strpos($str, $prefix) === 0. Developers could fall into the if (strpos(...)) trap because finding the text at position 0 returns 0, which is treated as false. PHP 8 added str_contains, str_starts_with, and str_ends_with, which take strings and clearly return true or false.

Code example

if (str_starts_with($path, "/api/")) {
    // Route to API
}
if (str_contains($email, "@gmail.com")) {
    // Validate
}

Common mistakes

• Using if (strpos($haystack, $needle)) to check for a word, overlooking the position-0 trap.

Follow-up questions

• What is the First-Class Callables syntax (...) in PHP 8.1, and how does it improve callbacks?

Sources

• PHP docs — str_contains