Strings - added method cut()

[icaine]

Purpose of this method is to simplify usage when functions like strstr() and strrchr() are need.

[Majkl578]

👎 Toooooo magic.

[icaine]

What?

[mishak87]

cut http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/irregular-verbs/cut.html

[rostenkowski]

I agree with @Majkl578. The name is not much descriptive and the functionality is too complicated.

• method name does not describe what function does
• too much method arguments
• returns different types
• code itself uses "tooooo magic" constructs

[vojtech-dobes]

What I like about Nette is that almost every feature is powerful yet very simple to grasp. I am afraid 99% of users will never learn (I mean remember how to use it) such method. 👎

[milo]

@icaine One number and two booleans are really much. E.g. $includeNeedle can be written mostly like:

$sub = Some::cut($path, '/') . '/';

and it is obvious. TRUE or FALSE as 5th parameter is just magic.

If I understand well, you need it to work with filesystem path mostly. Would not be FileSystem class better place? Inside it, method name can be more accurate.

If so, do you really need more than pathinfo() with realpath() provide?

[icaine]

The name may not be the best and if you give me any better i dont see a problem.
Anyway it cuts a string into two pieces by a needle, which can be a whole word not only a single char, and returns one of pieces, other parameters just say how to do it (at which occurence, which part is needed and if the needle itself should be included). Its useful for working with paths, for stripping pre/suffixes, etc.

The reason why i made this method is that i always was confused with strstr() and strrch() and the fact they dont provide same options (e.g. strrch doesnt have before_needle).

[rostenkowski]

I understand u. What with the Tooooo many arguments problem?

[icaine]

What with it? Lesser arguments means lesser functionality. If all were mandatory i would understand your cooooomplains, but they are not..

Anyway, the community refused it.. closed..

[fprochazka]

@icaine you give up too easily :)

[Majkl578]

Such PRs are about discussion, not about getting anger after first wave of disagreement. ;)

[dg]

@icaine Problem with too many arguments is that they are not understandable. For example, what do you think this is doing? $str = pad($str, TRUE, 3, FALSE)

[MartinMystikJonas]

What about split it to multiple methods with better names. Something like:

• Strings::before = part before needle, without needle
• Strings::until = part bafore needle, with needle
• Strings::past = part after needle, with needle
• Strings::after = part after needle, without needle

Internaly it still can call same function with many parameters parameters but it will be private.

Example:

echo Strings::before("some long string", "long"); // -> "some"
echo Strings::until("some long string", "long"); // -> "some long"
echo Strings::past("some long string", "long"); // -> "long string"
echo Strings::after("some long string", "long"); // -> "string"

[rostenkowski]

👍

Good idea...

Maybe the before and after methods could take second argument boolean $inclusive = FALSE or boolean $exclusive = TRUE to prevent API bloating and avoid until and past which are not much clear names.

[MartinMystikJonas]

I personally don't like boolean parameters. From my POV more methods with clear names are better.

[icaine]

@MartinMystikJonas i like it...

So

before ($haystack, $needle, $nth = 1)
after ($haystack, $needle, $nth = 1)
// and maybe these
until ($haystack, $needle, $nth = 1)
past ($haystack, $needle, $nth = 1)

// OR
before ($haystack, $needle, $nth = 1, $includeNeedle = false)
after ($haystack, $needle, $nth = 1, $includeNeedle = false)

[dg]

Is there any use-case, where $nth is greater than 1?

[MartinMystikJonas]

Well I can imagine something like:

after("/some/long/absolute/path/to/file", "/", 3); // -> "path/to/file"

[JanTvrdik]

@MartinMystikJonas And how would you know that you should always skip 3 directories?

[MartinMystikJonas]

On this was not best example. Let my try again :-)

Lets say we have some data storage where each user has his own folder for personal data and you want to show him only part of path he is interested to.

after("datastorage/user123/myfolder/myfile", "/", 3); // -> "myfolder/myfile"

Or you can compute $nth parameter somehow.

[icaine]

@JanTvrdik it's similar to using dirname(dirname(dirname(...))). With this method you could type before($filepath, '/', -3);

[dg]

And in the case that there are only two slashes, before($filepath, '/', -3) returns whole string? Hmmm…

I think that more expectable is to return FALSE. You can always use before($filepath, '/', -3) ?: $filepath.

[icaine]

It returns false.

[foxycode]

I'd like this:

after('some.long.file.name.jpg', '.', -1); // jpg