strpos() not working

[Mandakins]

I've got a string called $Utilities. In this example, the word "Gas" is first in the string. When I use the strpos() function to check for "Gas" in the string, it isn't found. Basically, whatever is first in the string is not found, but the rest of the words are. I'm trying to select the checkboxes of the items that are in the string.

This is what I currently have that is not working:

<?
if (strpos($Utilities, "Gas", 0)) {
echo "checked";
}
?>

I have also tried:
strpos($Utilities, "Gas")
and
if (strpos($Utilities, "Gas") === true) { ...
and
if (strpos($Utilities, "Gas") == true) { ...

None of those options work either. Is there another function that would work better?

[weekender]

this took me a while to track down...

from the php man page on [man]strpos[/man]

This function may return Boolean FALSE, but may also return a non-Boolean value which evaluates to FALSE, such as 0 or "". Please read the section on Booleans for more information. Use the === operator for testing the return value of this function.

in most programming languages, 0 and 1 are interpreted as false and true - but strings refer to the first character as being at position 0

so when your strpos function returns 0, it is not saying FALSE - it is saying the string is found at position 0 - ie the start of the string

adam

[Mandakins]

So I should do something like this:

<?
if ((strpos($Utilities, "Gas") === 0) || (strpos($Utilities, "Gas"))) {
echo "checked";
}
?>

It seems to work!

Just wish there was a shorter way to do the same thing...