[SOLVED] Field - Subtract First Word

[EternalSorrow]

I've been searching for several hours for an answer to this simple problem, but no luck, so I've come groveling here to seek guidance.

 

All I want to know is when a $field is retrieved from the database, how can I subtract, skip, trim or essentially eliminate the first word from a string?  Here's an example of what I want with the string of the $field and the output I'm going searching for:

 

$string = "The Scarlet Pimpernel";

 

$output = "Scarlet Pimpernel";

 

Be aware the first word could be anything, not necessarily the word 'the.'

[Alex]

<?php
$string = "The Scarlet Pimpernel";
$words = str_word_count($string, 1);
array_shift($words);
echo implode(' ', $words);

[.josh]

$string = preg_replace('^[^\s]*\s','',$string);

 

 

 

[Alex]

That won't work, you forgot the delimiter '~^[^\s]*\s~'

 

I was curious so I tested:

 

$words = str_word_count($string, 1);
array_shift($words);
implode(' ', $words);

 

vs

$string = preg_replace('~^[^\s]*\s~','',$string);

 

regex takes about ~1.6 times longer. Not that it matters at this scale.

[.josh]

argh that's like the 3rd post recently where i forgot delims

[.josh]

I'm kinda surprised the preg_match wasn't faster, since str_word_count has to evaluate the whole string. I wonder if

 

$string = explode(' ',$string);
array_shift($string)
$string = implode(' ',$string);

 

might be faster than str_word_count

 

[Alex]

I tested it, str_word_count seems to be ~1.05 times slower.

[Daniel0]

ltrim(strstr(' ', $foo));

substr(strstr(' ', $foo), 1);

substr($foo, strpos($foo, ' ')+1);

for ($i = 0; !isset($foo[$i]) || $foo[$i] != ' '; ++$i) {}
echo substr($foo, $i+1);

for ($i = 0, $l = strlen($foo); $i < $l && $foo[$i] != ' '; ++$i) {}
substr($foo, $i+1);

[Alex]

ltrim(strstr(' ', $foo));

Do you mean ltrim($string, strstr(' ', $foo, true)) ?

 

That'll only work in PHP 5.3+ though.

[Daniel0]

Do you mean ltrim($string, strstr(' ', $foo, true)) ?

 

Nope. strstr things you the stuff after the needle including the needle.

[.josh]

except you have arguments backwards in strstr

[Daniel0]

Oh yeah well, it got the point across anyways

[Alex]

oic. I thought you were trying to get 'The' (the first word in the string) and use that as the charlist in ltrim(). Just wasn't thinking.

[Daniel0]

One more:

strtok($foo, ' ');
echo strtok('');

[salathe]

For the regex approach, you could just use /^\S+\s+/  (using \S instead of [^\s]).

[thebadbad]

<?php
$string = "The Scarlet Pimpernel";
$words = str_word_count($string, 1);
array_shift($words);
echo implode(' ', $words);

 

Bad idea, since it removes punctuation.

[EternalSorrow]

We'll see how long the first post suggestion works on the site.  Thanks for all the help and the great learning experience everyone!