Aug 23, 2011 · Getting Started Introduction A simple tutorial Language Reference Basic syntax Types Variables Constants Expressions Operators Control Structures Functions 7 Min Read. PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is known as a general-purpose scripting language that can be utilized to create intuitive and dynamic websites. It was among the pioneer server-side language that can be integrated into HTML, making it easier to include functionality to web pages without requiring to call external data.Sep 28, 2020 · A PHP framework is a platform to create PHP web applications. PHP frameworks provide code libraries for commonly used functions, cutting down on the amount of original code you need to write. There are many good reasons for using PHP frameworks as opposed to coding from scratch. Because PHP frameworks have built-in libraries and tools, the time ... Well organized and easy to understand Web building tutorials with lots of examples of how to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, Python, PHP, Bootstrap, Java, XML and more.PHP - Keep The Values in The Form. To show the values in the input fields after the user hits the submit button, we add a little PHP script inside the value attribute of the following input fields: name, email, and website. In the comment textarea field, we put the script between the <textarea> and </textarea> tags.Features Command line usage Change language: Submit a Pull Request Report a Bug Built-in web server ¶ Warning This web server is designed to aid application development. It may also be useful for testing purposes or for application demonstrations that are run in controlled environments. It is not intended to be a full-featured web server.PHP: PHP 8.0.0 Release Announcement. PHP 8.1.23 Released! Change language: Released! PHP 8.0 is a major update of the PHP language. It contains many new features and optimizations including named arguments, union types, attributes, constructor property promotion, match expression, nullsafe operator, JIT, and improvements in the type system ... PHP's behaviour when using more than one unparenthesized ternary operator within a single expression is non-obvious compared to other languages. Indeed prior to PHP 8.0.0, ternary expressions were evaluated left-associative, instead of right-associative like most other programming languages.There are two string operators. The first is the concatenation operator ('.'), which returns the concatenation of its right and left arguments. The second is the concatenating assignment operator (' .= '), which appends the argument on the right side to the argument on the left side. Please read Assignment Operators for more information.Factors to Consider When Choosing a PHP Framework. Best PHP Frameworks in 2023 (Comparison Table) 10 Best PHP Frameworks in 2023 (Ranked) Laravel. Symfony. Yii 2. CakePHP. CodeIgniter. Zend Framework.The optional timestamp parameter in the date () function specifies a timestamp. If omitted, the current date and time will be used (as in the examples above). The PHP mktime () function returns the Unix timestamp for a date. The Unix timestamp contains the number of seconds between the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) and the time ... Note that the ; is redundant; as the answers suggest this short-tag expands to an echo with a semicolon added to the end, as per the php documents. – not-just-yeti Oct 5, 2015 at 1:25 PHP Resource. The special resource type is not an actual data type. It is the storing of a reference to functions and resources external to PHP. A common example of using the resource data type is a database call. We will not talk about the resource type here, since it is an advanced topic. Well organized and easy to understand Web building tutorials with lots of examples of how to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, Python, PHP, Bootstrap, Java, XML and more.Where src/ is the directory containing all your PHP code. Then, run the commands to build and run the Docker image: $ docker build -t my-php-app . $ docker run -d --name my-running-app my-php-app. We recommend that you add a php.ini configuration file; see the "Configuration" section for details. Jun 9, 2023 · This PHP tutorial, whether you’re a beginner or a professional, our tutorial is designed to provide you with in-depth knowledge of the PHP scripting language. With our PHP tutorial, you’ll learn all the important topics, including control statements, functions, arrays, strings, file handling, form handling, regular expressions, date and ... Select Data From a MySQL Database. The SELECT statement is used to select data from one or more tables: SELECT column_name (s) FROM table_name. or we can use the * character to select ALL columns from a table: SELECT * FROM table_name. To learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial. 7 Min Read. PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is known as a general-purpose scripting language that can be utilized to create intuitive and dynamic websites. It was among the pioneer server-side language that can be integrated into HTML, making it easier to include functionality to web pages without requiring to call external data.The optional timestamp parameter in the date () function specifies a timestamp. If omitted, the current date and time will be used (as in the examples above). The PHP mktime () function returns the Unix timestamp for a date. The Unix timestamp contains the number of seconds between the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) and the time ... Nov 19, 2015 · In OS X Mavericks (and newer), start a PHP server from the command line: cd to/your/directory php -S localhost:8888 It works, but the server only available on that computer only. PHP Variables. A variable can have a short name (like x and y) or a more descriptive name (age, carname, total_volume). A variable starts with the $ sign, followed by the name of the variable. A variable name must start with a letter or the underscore character. A variable name can only contain alpha-numeric characters and underscores (A-z, 0-9 ...PHP is a server scripting language, and a powerful tool for making dynamic and interactive Web pages. PHP is a widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to competitors such as Microsoft's ASP. Start learning PHP now ».The main PHP configuration file is well-documented and located at /etc/php/php.ini . It is recommended to set your timezone ( list of timezones) in /etc/php/php.ini like so: date.timezone = Europe/Berlin. If you want to display errors to debug your PHP code, change display_errors to On in /etc/php/php.ini: Where src/ is the directory containing all your PHP code. Then, run the commands to build and run the Docker image: $ docker build -t my-php-app . $ docker run -d --name my-running-app my-php-app. We recommend that you add a php.ini configuration file; see the "Configuration" section for details.PHP is an open-source, interpreted, and object-oriented scripting language that can be executed at the server-side. PHP is well suited for web development. Therefore, it is used to develop web applications (an application that executes on the server and generates the dynamic page.). PHP was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 but appeared in the ... If you find that when you restart your computer, this solution will not work anymore: Set the Path like as following: Step 1 - Click on the Windows icon. Step 2 - Click on the Settings icon. Step 3 - Click on System. Step 4 - Click on About. Step 5 - Click on System info. Step 6 - Click on Advanced system settings.11 years ago. The NOT or complement operator ( ~ ) and negative binary numbers can be confusing. ~2 = -3 because you use the formula ~x = -x - 1 The bitwise complement of a decimal number is the negation of the number minus 1. NOTE: just using 4 bits here for the examples below but in reality PHP uses 32 bits.2 years ago. In php there are 3 types of comments. 1.single line c++ style comment (//) 2.single line Unix shell stype comment (#) 3.multi line c style comment (/*/) single or multi line comment comes to the end of the line or come first to the current block of php code.You can also call the script from the command line after chmod'ing the file (ie: chmod 755 file.php). On your first line of the file, enter "#!/usr/bin/php" (or to wherever your php executable is located). If you want to suppress the PHP headers, use the line of "#!/usr/bin/php -q" for your path. up. down.PHP Exercises, Practice, Solution: PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML.Example Get your own PHP Server. When the user fills out the form above and clicks the submit button, the form data is sent for processing to a PHP file named "welcome.php". The form data is sent with the HTTP POST method. To display the submitted data you could simply echo all the variables. The "welcome.php" looks like this: Aug 23, 2011 · Getting Started Introduction A simple tutorial Language Reference Basic syntax Types Variables Constants Expressions Operators Control Structures Functions I run 'php artisan migrate' command on window 8.1, laravel 7, xamp (php version 7.3.2) . I found some error, my all table did not migrate, how to fix [closed] Illuminate\Database\QueryException SQLSTATE [42S01]: Base table or view already exists: 1050 Table 'users' already exists. I have a CLI screenshot of the error:There are two string operators. The first is the concatenation operator ('.'), which returns the concatenation of its right and left arguments. The second is the concatenating assignment operator (' .= '), which appends the argument on the right side to the argument on the left side. Please read Assignment Operators for more information.Basic PHP Syntax. A PHP script can be placed anywhere in the document. The default file extension for PHP files is " .php ". A PHP file normally contains HTML tags, and some PHP scripting code. Below, we have an example of a simple PHP file, with a PHP script that uses a built-in PHP function " echo " to output the text "Hello World!"PHP Resource. The special resource type is not an actual data type. It is the storing of a reference to functions and resources external to PHP. A common example of using the resource data type is a database call. We will not talk about the resource type here, since it is an advanced topic. In OS X Mavericks (and newer), start a PHP server from the command line: cd to/your/directory php -S localhost:8888 It works, but the server only available on that computer only.Aug 1, 2023 · Classes should be defined before instantiation (and in some cases this is a requirement). containing the name of a class is used with , a new instance of that class will be created. If the class is in a namespace, its fully qualified name must be used when doing this. As of PHP 8.0.0, using with arbitrary expressions is supported. PHP: PHP 8.0.0 Release Announcement. PHP 8.1.23 Released! Change language: Released! PHP 8.0 is a major update of the PHP language. It contains many new features and optimizations including named arguments, union types, attributes, constructor property promotion, match expression, nullsafe operator, JIT, and improvements in the type system ... PHP can create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server. PHP can collect form data. PHP can send and receive cookies. PHP can add, delete, modify data in your database. PHP can be used to control user-access. PHP can encrypt data. With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. You can output images or PDF files. PHP is a recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". PHP is a server side scripting language that is embedded in HTML. It is used to manage dynamic content, databases, session tracking, even build entire e-commerce sites. It is integrated with a number of popular databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Sybase, Informix, and ...PHP Resource. The special resource type is not an actual data type. It is the storing of a reference to functions and resources external to PHP. A common example of using the resource data type is a database call. We will not talk about the resource type here, since it is an advanced topic. The double arrow operator, =>, is used as an access mechanism for arrays. This means that what is on the left side of it will have a corresponding value of what is on the right side of it in array context. This can be used to set values of any acceptable type into a corresponding index of an array. The index can be associative (string based) or ...A session is started with the session_start () function. Session variables are set with the PHP global variable: $_SESSION. Now, let's create a new page called "demo_session1.php". In this page, we start a new PHP session and set some session variables:If you find that when you restart your computer, this solution will not work anymore: Set the Path like as following: Step 1 - Click on the Windows icon. Step 2 - Click on the Settings icon. Step 3 - Click on System. Step 4 - Click on About. Step 5 - Click on System info. Step 6 - Click on Advanced system settings.PHP Resource. The special resource type is not an actual data type. It is the storing of a reference to functions and resources external to PHP. A common example of using the resource data type is a database call. We will not talk about the resource type here, since it is an advanced topic.PHP is a server scripting language, and a powerful tool for making dynamic and interactive Web pages. PHP is a widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to competitors such as Microsoft's ASP. Start learning PHP now ».PHP is a server-side scripting language created in 1995 by Rasmus Lerdorf. PHP is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. What is PHP used for? As of October 2018, PHP is used on 80% of websites whose server-side language is known. It is typically ...Mar 15, 2022 · There are two main ways to install PHP on a Windows®-based computer: download the Windows Installer or use the Windows Zip file from the PHP Web site. Either method will get PHP working, but both have some extra steps that are needed to make PHP work well. Windows Installer Aug 1, 2023 · The simplest way to specify a string is to enclose it in single quotes (the character ' ). To specify a literal single quote, escape it with a backslash ( \ ). To specify a literal backslash, double it ( \\ ). All other instances of backslash will be treated as a literal backslash: this means that the other escape sequences you might be used to ... Aug 1, 2023 · You can also call the script from the command line after chmod'ing the file (ie: chmod 755 file.php). On your first line of the file, enter "#!/usr/bin/php" (or to wherever your php executable is located). If you want to suppress the PHP headers, use the line of "#!/usr/bin/php -q" for your path. up. down. Feb 6, 2023 · Also, you can increase PHP’s memory limit for specific websites. One method would be to place a php.ini file in the site’s webroot. You can even set the limit for specific scriptname.php. For example using ini_set(‘memory_limit’,’256MB’). How to increase PHP memory_limit. To increase the PHP memory limit setting, edit your PHP.ini file. The optional timestamp parameter in the date () function specifies a timestamp. If omitted, the current date and time will be used (as in the examples above). The PHP mktime () function returns the Unix timestamp for a date. The Unix timestamp contains the number of seconds between the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) and the time ...I run 'php artisan migrate' command on window 8.1, laravel 7, xamp (php version 7.3.2) . I found some error, my all table did not migrate, how to fix [closed] Illuminate\Database\QueryException SQLSTATE [42S01]: Base table or view already exists: 1050 Table 'users' already exists. I have a CLI screenshot of the error:Example Get your own PHP Server. When the user fills out the form above and clicks the submit button, the form data is sent for processing to a PHP file named "welcome.php". The form data is sent with the HTTP POST method. To display the submitted data you could simply echo all the variables. The "welcome.php" looks like this: If you find that when you restart your computer, this solution will not work anymore: Set the Path like as following: Step 1 - Click on the Windows icon. Step 2 - Click on the Settings icon. Step 3 - Click on System. Step 4 - Click on About. Step 5 - Click on System info. Step 6 - Click on Advanced system settings.Aug 1, 2023 · Variables in PHP are represented by a dollar sign followed by the name of the variable. The variable name is case-sensitive. Variable names follow the same rules as other labels in PHP. A valid variable name starts with a letter or underscore, followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores. Example Get your own PHP Server. When the user fills out the form above and clicks the submit button, the form data is sent for processing to a PHP file named "welcome.php". The form data is sent with the HTTP POST method. To display the submitted data you could simply echo all the variables. The "welcome.php" looks like this:Aug 1, 2023 · The simplest way to specify a string is to enclose it in single quotes (the character ' ). To specify a literal single quote, escape it with a backslash ( \ ). To specify a literal backslash, double it ( \\ ). All other instances of backslash will be treated as a literal backslash: this means that the other escape sequences you might be used to ... Note that the ; is redundant; as the answers suggest this short-tag expands to an echo with a semicolon added to the end, as per the php documents. – not-just-yeti Oct 5, 2015 at 1:25 PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development. Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world. What's new in 8.2 Download. 8.2.9 · Changelog · Upgrading. Aug 1, 2023 · Here's how to run dual PHP instances with PHP 5.2 and any previous PHP on Windows 2003: 1. Right-click My Computer, go to Advanced tab, and click on Environment Variables. Add the two installations and their EXT directories to the Path variable. For example, add: c:\php;c:\php\ext;c:\TMAS\php;c:\tmas\php\ext; If you find that when you restart your computer, this solution will not work anymore: Set the Path like as following: Step 1 - Click on the Windows icon. Step 2 - Click on the Settings icon. Step 3 - Click on System. Step 4 - Click on About. Step 5 - Click on System info. Step 6 - Click on Advanced system settings.PHP: PHP 8.0.0 Release Announcement. PHP 8.1.23 Released! Change language: Released! PHP 8.0 is a major update of the PHP language. It contains many new features and optimizations including named arguments, union types, attributes, constructor property promotion, match expression, nullsafe operator, JIT, and improvements in the type system ...I run 'php artisan migrate' command on window 8.1, laravel 7, xamp (php version 7.3.2) . I found some error, my all table did not migrate, how to fix [closed] Illuminate\Database\QueryException SQLSTATE [42S01]: Base table or view already exists: 1050 Table 'users' already exists. I have a CLI screenshot of the error: PHP Installer Tools on Windows. Recommended Configuration on Windows systems. Manual PHP Installation on Windows. Building from source. Command Line PHP on Microsoft Windows. Apache 2.x on Microsoft Windows. Troubleshooting PHP on Windows. Installation on Cloud Computing platforms. Azure App Services.Mar 15, 2022 · There are two main ways to install PHP on a Windows®-based computer: download the Windows Installer or use the Windows Zip file from the PHP Web site. Either method will get PHP working, but both have some extra steps that are needed to make PHP work well. Windows Installer PHP Resource. The special resource type is not an actual data type. It is the storing of a reference to functions and resources external to PHP. A common example of using the resource data type is a database call. We will not talk about the resource type here, since it is an advanced topic. Well organized and easy to understand Web building tutorials with lots of examples of how to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, Python, PHP, Bootstrap, Java, XML and more.Aug 1, 2023 · Command line options; Option Long Option Description-a--interactive: Run PHP interactively. For more information, see the Interactive shell section.-b--bindpath: Bind Path for external FASTCGI Server mode (CGI only). PHP User Defined Functions. Besides the built-in PHP functions, it is possible to create your own functions. A function is a block of statements that can be used repeatedly in a program. A function will not execute automatically when a page loads. A function will be executed by a call to the function.The user friendly PHP online compiler that allows you to Write PHP code and run it online. The PHP text editor also supports taking input from the user and standard libraries. Command line options; Option Long Option Description-a--interactive: Run PHP interactively. For more information, see the Interactive shell section.-b--bindpath: Bind Path for external FASTCGI Server mode (CGI only).PHP Version: 4+ PHP Changelog: PHP 7.2: The headers parameter also accepts an array PHP 5.4: Added header injection protection for the headers parameter. PHP 4.3.0: (Windows only) All custom headers (like From, Cc, Bcc and Date) are supported, and are not case-sensitive. PHP 4.2.3: The parameter parameter is disabled in safe modePHP can create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server. PHP can collect form data. PHP can send and receive cookies. PHP can add, delete, modify data in your database. PHP can be used to control user-access. PHP can encrypt data. With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. You can output images or PDF files.Aug 1, 2023 · PHP Installer Tools on Windows. Recommended Configuration on Windows systems. Manual PHP Installation on Windows. Building from source. Command Line PHP on Microsoft Windows. Apache 2.x on Microsoft Windows. Troubleshooting PHP on Windows. Installation on Cloud Computing platforms. Azure App Services. You can also call the script from the command line after chmod'ing the file (ie: chmod 755 file.php). On your first line of the file, enter "#!/usr/bin/php" (or to wherever your php executable is located). If you want to suppress the PHP headers, use the line of "#!/usr/bin/php -q" for your path. up. down.PHP is an open-source, interpreted, and object-oriented scripting language that can be executed at the server-side. PHP is well suited for web development. Therefore, it is used to develop web applications (an application that executes on the server and generates the dynamic page.). PHP was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 but appeared in the ... The optional timestamp parameter in the date () function specifies a timestamp. If omitted, the current date and time will be used (as in the examples above). The PHP mktime () function returns the Unix timestamp for a date. The Unix timestamp contains the number of seconds between the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) and the time ... Formatter. This PHP formatter allows you to make your code readable so you can edit it in a more simple fashion. Autodetect HTML XML CSS JavaScript PHP JSON. xxxxxxxxxx. 1. Tab size. Aug 1, 2023 · You can also call the script from the command line after chmod'ing the file (ie: chmod 755 file.php). On your first line of the file, enter "#!/usr/bin/php" (or to wherever your php executable is located). If you want to suppress the PHP headers, use the line of "#!/usr/bin/php -q" for your path. up. down. PHP is an open-source, interpreted, and object-oriented scripting language that can be executed at the server-side. PHP is well suited for web development. Therefore, it is used to develop web applications (an application that executes on the server and generates the dynamic page.). PHP was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 but appeared in the ... There are two string operators. The first is the concatenation operator ('.'), which returns the concatenation of its right and left arguments. The second is the concatenating assignment operator (' .= '), which appends the argument on the right side to the argument on the left side. Please read Assignment Operators for more information.
Equal Operator == The comparison operator called Equal Operator is the double equal sign “==”. This operator accepts two inputs to compare and returns true value if both of the values are same (It compares only value of variable, not data types) and return a false value if both of the values are not same.. Amish country picker
www.php.net – PHP distribution, tutorials, newsgroups, and more. www.phpfreaks.com - PHP and MySQL tutorials, scripts, forums, and more. www.phpbuilder.com – Collection of PHP resources. Hello World If your web server supports PHP, type this example into a text file called hello.php and access it in your browser byExample Get your own PHP Server. When the user fills out the form above and clicks the submit button, the form data is sent for processing to a PHP file named "welcome.php". The form data is sent with the HTTP POST method. To display the submitted data you could simply echo all the variables. The "welcome.php" looks like this:PHP: PHP 8.0.0 Release Announcement. PHP 8.1.23 Released! Change language: Released! PHP 8.0 is a major update of the PHP language. It contains many new features and optimizations including named arguments, union types, attributes, constructor property promotion, match expression, nullsafe operator, JIT, and improvements in the type system ... Aug 1, 2023 · Classes should be defined before instantiation (and in some cases this is a requirement). containing the name of a class is used with , a new instance of that class will be created. If the class is in a namespace, its fully qualified name must be used when doing this. As of PHP 8.0.0, using with arbitrary expressions is supported. Arrays. ¶. An array in PHP is actually an ordered map. A map is a type that associates values to keys. This type is optimized for several different uses; it can be treated as an array, list (vector), hash table (an implementation of a map), dictionary, collection, stack, queue, and probably more. As array values can be other array s, trees and ...There are two string operators. The first is the concatenation operator ('.'), which returns the concatenation of its right and left arguments. The second is the concatenating assignment operator (' .= '), which appends the argument on the right side to the argument on the left side. Please read Assignment Operators for more information.This is like an E_WARNING set by the programmer using the PHP function trigger_error() E_USER_NOTICE 1024; User-generated notice. This is like an E_NOTICE set by the programmer using the PHP function trigger_error() E_STRICT 2048; Run-time notices. PHP suggest changes to your code to help interoperability and compatibility of the code; E ...However, PHP Manual is not listed "(" and ")" in precedence list. It looks like "(" and ")" has higher precedence as it should be. Note: If you write following code, you would need "()" to get expected value.PHP's behaviour when using more than one unparenthesized ternary operator within a single expression is non-obvious compared to other languages. Indeed prior to PHP 8.0.0, ternary expressions were evaluated left-associative, instead of right-associative like most other programming languages. This is like an E_WARNING set by the programmer using the PHP function trigger_error() E_USER_NOTICE 1024; User-generated notice. This is like an E_NOTICE set by the programmer using the PHP function trigger_error() E_STRICT 2048; Run-time notices. PHP suggest changes to your code to help interoperability and compatibility of the code; E ...The Definitive PHP 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 8.0, and 8.1 Benchmarks (2023) The year 2021 has been highly eventful for PHP ( and Kinsta ). PHP 8.0 is already a year old, and the much-anticipated PHP 8.1 was released on November 25, 2021, bringing many exciting features. You can catch up on all the latest PHP 8.1 features in our in-depth post.2 years ago. In php there are 3 types of comments. 1.single line c++ style comment (//) 2.single line Unix shell stype comment (#) 3.multi line c style comment (/*/) single or multi line comment comes to the end of the line or come first to the current block of php code.PHP's behaviour when using more than one unparenthesized ternary operator within a single expression is non-obvious compared to other languages. Indeed prior to PHP 8.0.0, ternary expressions were evaluated left-associative, instead of right-associative like most other programming languages.Getting Started Introduction A simple tutorial Language Reference Basic syntax Types Variables Constants Expressions Operators Control Structures FunctionsPHP User Defined Functions. Besides the built-in PHP functions, it is possible to create your own functions. A function is a block of statements that can be used repeatedly in a program. A function will not execute automatically when a page loads. A function will be executed by a call to the function. Required Knowledge. Before you begin this PHP tutorial, it is necessary that you have a basic understanding and experience of the following: HTML - PHP can be written with HTML, so it's essential. Basic programming knowledge - If you have any traditional programming experience like C, then learning PHP will be very easy for you.The code editor lets you write and practice different types of computer languages. It includes PHP, but you can use it for other languages too. New languages are added all the time: Learn More If you don't know PHP, we suggest that you read our PHP Tutorial from scratch. Easy Package Management If you find that when you restart your computer, this solution will not work anymore: Set the Path like as following: Step 1 - Click on the Windows icon. Step 2 - Click on the Settings icon. Step 3 - Click on System. Step 4 - Click on About. Step 5 - Click on System info. Step 6 - Click on Advanced system settings.strpos () - Search For a Text Within a String. The PHP strpos () function searches for a specific text within a string. If a match is found, the function returns the character position of the first match. If no match is found, it will return FALSE..