Remove a part of a string, but only when it is at the end of the string

Dylan picture Dylan · Apr 6, 2011 · Viewed 56.3k times · Source

I need to remove a substring of a string, but only when it is at the END of the string.

for example, removing 'string' at the end of the following strings :

"this is a test string" ->  "this is a test "
"this string is a test string" - > "this string is a test "
"this string is a test" -> "this string is a test"

Any idea's ? Probably some kind of preg_replace, but how??

Answer

Tim Cooper picture Tim Cooper · Apr 6, 2011

You'll note the use of the $ character, which denotes the end of a string:

$new_str = preg_replace('/string$/', '', $str);

If the string is a user supplied variable, it is a good idea to run it through preg_quote first:

$remove = $_GET['remove']; // or whatever the case may be
$new_str = preg_replace('/'. preg_quote($remove, '/') . '$/', '', $str);