WordPress String Utilities

Essential string manipulation utilities for WordPress development. Provides powerful methods for string checking, validation, manipulation, and content processing that WordPress doesn't offer out of the box.

Features

• 🎯 Comprehensive API: 42 focused methods for common string operations
• 🔍 Enhanced Checking: Multi-needle contains, starts/ends with arrays, pattern matching
• ✅ Built-in Validation: Email, URL, date, numeric, and format validation
• 🔧 Smart Manipulation: First/last replace, content extraction, whitespace handling
• 📝 Content Processing: Reading time, word limits, excerpts with WordPress integration
• 🎨 Case Conversion: camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, and more
• 🛡️ WordPress-Native: Uses WordPress functions like wp_strip_all_tags(), is_email()

Requirements

• PHP 7.4 or later
• WordPress 5.0 or later

Installation

composer require arraypress/wp-string-utils

Basic Usage

String Checking

use ArrayPress\StringUtils\Str;

// Check for multiple needles
Str::contains_any( 'admin-dashboard.php', 'admin', 'dashboard' );  // true
Str::contains_all( 'WordPress Plugin', 'Word', 'Press' );          // true

// Enhanced starts/ends checking
Str::starts_with( 'image.jpg', ['.jpg', '.png', '.gif'] );        // false
Str::ends_with( 'image.jpg', ['.jpg', '.png', '.gif'] );          // true

// Pattern matching with wildcards
Str::matches_any( 'admin.php', ['admin.*', 'edit.*'], true );     // true

String Validation

// Format validation
Str::is_email( 'user@example.com' );      // true
Str::is_url( 'https://example.com' );     // true
Str::is_date( '2024-01-15' );             // true
Str::is_ip( '192.168.1.1' );             // true

// Type checking
Str::is_numeric( '123.45' );              // true
Str::is_integer( '123' );                 // true
Str::is_float( '123.45' );                // true
Str::is_json( '{"key":"value"}' );        // true

// Character validation
Str::is_alpha( 'HelloWorld' );            // true
Str::is_alphanumeric( 'Hello123' );       // true
Str::is_hex( 'FF0000' );                  // true
Str::is_blank( '   ' );                   // true

String Manipulation

// Advanced replacement
Str::replace_first( 'hello', 'hi', 'hello world hello' );    // 'hi world hello'
Str::replace_last( 'hello', 'hi', 'hello world hello' );     // 'hello world hi'

// Content extraction
Str::between( '[', ']', 'Hello [world] test' );              // 'world'
Str::between( '<p>', '</p>', '<p>Content</p>' );             // 'Content'

// Smart truncation
Str::truncate( 'This is a long sentence', 10 );              // 'This is...'
Str::words( 'The quick brown fox jumps', 3 );                // 'The quick brown...'

// Whitespace handling
Str::reduce_whitespace( '  hello    world  ' );              // 'hello world'
Str::remove_whitespace( 'hello world' );                     // 'helloworld'
Str::remove_line_breaks( "line1\nline2" );                   // 'line1line2'

Case Conversion

// Modern case formats
Str::camel( 'hello-world' );              // 'helloWorld'
Str::snake( 'HelloWorld' );               // 'hello_world'  
Str::kebab( 'Hello World' );              // 'hello-world'
Str::title( 'hello world' );              // 'Hello World'

// Basic case conversion (accepts any type)
Str::upper( ['a', 'b'] );                 // '["A","B"]'
Str::lower( 'HELLO' );                    // 'hello'
Str::sentence( 'HELLO WORLD' );           // 'Hello world'

Content Processing

// WordPress-optimized content handling
Str::excerpt( '<p>Long content here...</p>', 50 );           // 'Long content here...'
Str::word_count( '<p>Hello <strong>world</strong></p>' );    // 2
Str::reading_time( $post_content );                          // ['minutes' => 3, 'seconds' => 45]

// Content splitting
Str::to_words( 'hello world test' );                         // ['hello', 'world', 'test']
Str::to_lines( "line1\nline2\nline3" );                      // ['line1', 'line2', 'line3']
Str::to_sentences( 'Hello world. How are you?' );            // ['Hello world', ' How are you']

Utility Operations

// Safe conversion
Str::from( ['a', 'b'] );                  // '["a","b"]'
Str::from( 123 );                         // '123'

// Array conversion
Str::to_array( 'apple, banana, cherry' ); // ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry']
Str::to_csv( ['red', 'green', 'blue'] );  // 'red,green,blue'

// Text processing
Str::ascii( 'café naïve' );               // 'cafe naive'
Str::normalize( '  HELLO World  ' );      // 'hello world'

API Reference

String Checking Methods

Method	Description	Returns
contains_any($haystack, ...$needles)	Check if string contains any needle	bool
contains_all($haystack, ...$needles)	Check if string contains all needles	bool
starts_with($haystack, $needles)	Check if starts with needle(s)	bool
ends_with($haystack, $needles)	Check if ends with needle(s)	bool
matches_any($needle, $patterns, $wildcard)	Pattern matching with wildcards	bool

Validation Methods

Method	Description	Returns
is_json($string)	Check if valid JSON	bool
is_email($string)	Check if valid email	bool
is_url($string)	Check if valid URL	bool
is_date($string)	Check if valid date	bool
is_ip($string)	Check if valid IP address	bool
is_numeric($string)	Check if numeric	bool
is_integer($string)	Check if integer	bool
is_float($string)	Check if float	bool
is_alpha($string)	Check if alphabetic only	bool
is_alphanumeric($string)	Check if alphanumeric only	bool
is_hex($string)	Check if hexadecimal	bool
is_blank($string)	Check if empty/whitespace	bool
is_length_valid($string, $min, $max)	Check length within range	bool

Manipulation Methods

Method	Description	Returns
replace_first($search, $replace, $subject)	Replace first occurrence	string
replace_last($search, $replace, $subject)	Replace last occurrence	string
between($start, $end, $subject)	Extract content between delimiters	string
truncate($string, $length, $suffix)	Truncate with suffix	string
words($string, $limit, $suffix)	Limit word count	string
reduce_whitespace($string)	Reduce multiple spaces to single	string
remove_whitespace($string)	Remove all whitespace	string
remove_line_breaks($string)	Remove line breaks	string

Case Conversion Methods

Method	Description	Returns
camel($string)	Convert to camelCase	string
snake($string)	Convert to snake_case	string
kebab($string)	Convert to kebab-case	string
title($string)	Convert to Title Case	string
upper($value)	Convert to UPPERCASE	string
lower($value)	Convert to lowercase	string
sentence($value)	Convert to Sentence case	string

Content Processing Methods

Method	Description	Returns
excerpt($content, $length, $stripTags)	Create safe excerpt	string
reading_time($content, $wpm)	Estimate reading time	array
word_count($string)	Count words (strips HTML)	int

Utility Methods

Method	Description	Returns
from($value)	Convert value to string safely	string
ascii($string)	Remove accents, convert to ASCII	string
normalize($string)	Trim and lowercase	string
to_array($string, $separator)	Convert CSV string to array	array
to_csv($array, $separator)	Convert array to CSV string	string
to_words($string)	Split into words array	array
to_lines($string)	Split into lines array	array
to_sentences($string)	Split into sentences array	array

Common Use Cases

Form Validation

// Validate user input
$email_valid = Str::is_email( $_POST['email'] );
$phone_valid = Str::is_numeric( $_POST['phone'] );
$website_valid = Str::is_url( $_POST['website'] );
$birthdate_valid = Str::is_date( $_POST['birthdate'] );

// Check required fields
$name_provided = !Str::is_blank( $_POST['name'] );
$message_length = Str::is_length_valid( $_POST['message'], 10, 500 );

Content Processing

// Create clean excerpts
$excerpt = Str::excerpt( $post_content, 150 );

// Process user content
$clean_title = Str::title( $user_input );
$slug = Str::kebab( $clean_title );
$normalized = Str::normalize( $user_search );

// Content analysis
$reading_time = Str::reading_time( $article_content );
$word_count = Str::word_count( $content );

Data Cleanup

// Clean messy data
$clean_text = Str::reduce_whitespace( $messy_input );
$single_line = Str::remove_line_breaks( $multi_line_text );
$no_accents = Str::ascii( $international_text );

// Parse structured data
$tags = Str::to_array( $comma_separated_tags );
$csv_export = Str::to_csv( $tag_array );

WordPress Integration

// Meta field processing
$featured = Str::is_json( $meta_value ) ? json_decode( $meta_value ) : $meta_value;
$categories = Str::to_array( get_post_meta( $post_id, 'categories', true ) );

// Admin interface
$admin_pages = ['admin.php', 'edit.php', 'options.php'];
$is_admin_page = Str::ends_with( $current_page, $admin_pages );

// Content filtering
$safe_excerpt = Str::excerpt( get_the_content(), 200 );
$estimated_time = Str::reading_time( get_the_content() );

Key Benefits

• Fills WordPress Gaps: Provides methods WordPress doesn't offer
• Enhanced Functionality: Better versions of basic PHP string functions
• WordPress-Optimized: Integrates with WordPress functions and conventions
• Type Safety: Strict typing with predictable return values
• Performance-Focused: Efficient implementations without heavy dependencies
• Developer-Friendly: Intuitive method names and consistent API

Requirements

• PHP 7.4+
• WordPress 5.0+

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-2.0-or-later License.

Support

• Documentation
• Issue Tracker