PHP: Remove Last Character from String – substr/substr_replace/rtrim

This is a very common PHP question, how to remove last character from string in PHP?

So here are three ways how to delete last character from string in PHP.

Method 1 – PHP: Remove Last Character from String using substr and mb_substr

substr and mb_substr commands usage

substr($string, 0, -1);
mb_substr($string, 0, -1);

substr and mb_substr example:

$string = "This is test string..";
echo $string . "\n";
 
// substr function
echo "substr: " . substr($string, 0, -1);
 
echo "\n";
 
// mb_substr multibyte version
echo "mb_substr: " . mb_substr($string, 0, -1);
 
echo "\n";

Example output:

This is test string..
This is test string.
This is test string.

Method 2 – PHP: Remove Last Character from String using substr_replace

substr_replace command usage

substr_replace($string ,"",-1);

substr_replace example:

$string = "This is test string..";
echo $string . "\n";
 
// substr_replace function
echo "substr_replace: " . substr_replace($string ,"",-1);
 
echo "\n";

Example output:

This is test string..
This is test string.

Method 3 – PHP: Remove Last Character from String using rtrim

Note: rtrim function is not working exactly same way as substr and substr_replace, but it is of course useful some cases. Rtrim function trims all specified characters from end of the string.

rtrim command usage

rtrim($string,'x');

rtrim example:

$string = "This is test string..";
echo $string . "\n";
 
// rtrim function
echo "rtrim: " . rtrim($string, ".");
 
echo "\n";

Example output:

This is test string..
This is test string