strpos doesn't match a string : characterset issue?

Question

a strpos works or not depending on the parsed string source (entered manually or provided by a third-party mechanism) :

index.php?option=com_ars&view=release&id=8

The strpos instruction is

$debug = "found '?' : " . ((strpos($url, '?') === false) ? 'false' : 'true');

The strpos always return false.

I tried mb_strpos , I tried all sorts of en/de-coding to no avail ( utf8_encode , utf8_decode , even using sprintf , iconv , ...).

I best hint I have up to know is that, when the string is provided by a 3rd-party mechanism a convert_uudecode gives an error

Warning: convert_uudecode(): The given parameter is not a valid uuencoded string

while for the manually entered it returns 8AX9| 3".

I'm no php specialist at all, but this make me think of a characterset problem.

Any idea on how I should do my strpos ?

Answer 1

First of all, I see that there is one parentheses "(" too much. (you have 3 opening "(", and 2 closing ")").
Secondly, if you want your variable $ok to be true if he FINDS the "?" sign, then you should test with !==

$ok = strpos($url, '?') !== false;

$ok will now be true if a quotation mark "?" is found.