PHP
From Christoph's Personal Wiki
PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is an open-source, reflective programming language. Originally designed as a high level scripting language for producing dynamic Web pages, PHP is used mainly in server-side application software.
Sandbox
Inconsistent arguments and return values
To illustrate this problem, below is a table of the functions that match a user defined thing:
replaces case gives s/m/x offset
matches with insens number arrays matches flags (-1=end)
ereg ereg no all no array no 0
ereg_replace ereg str no all no no no 0
eregi ereg yes all no array no 0
eregi_replace ereg str yes all no no no 0
mb_ereg ereg[1] no all no array no 0
mb_ereg_replace ereg[1] str/expr no all no no yes 0
mb_eregi ereg[1] yes all no array no 0
mb_eregi_replace ereg[1] str yes all no no no 0
preg_match preg[2] yes/no one no array yes 0
preg_match_all preg yes/no all no array yes 0
preg_replace preg str/expr yes/no n/all yes no yes 0
str_replace str str no all yes number no 0
str_ireplace str str yes all yes number no 0
strstr, strchr str/char no one no substr no 0
stristr str/char yes one no substr no 0
strrchr char no one no substr no -1
strpos str/char no one no index no n
stripos str/char yes one no index no n
strrpos char[3] no one no index no n
strripos str yes one no index no -1
mb_strpos str[1] no one no index no n
mb_strrpos str[1] yes one no index no -1
[1] Handles multi-byte characters; [2] PCRE regex: so-called "Perl compatible" regular expressions; [3] Also does strings in PHP 5
Note: The same problem exists for other function groups, not just for matching. Also note: In Perl, all the functionality provided by the functions in this table is available through a simple set of 4 operators.
