Convert hex color to RGB values in PHP

Question

What would be a good way to convert hex color values like #ffffff into the single RGB values 255 255 255 using PHP?

Answer 1

I made a function which also returns alpha if alpha is provided as a second parameter the code is below.

The function

function hexToRgb($hex, $alpha = false) {
   $hex      = str_replace('#', '', $hex);
   $length   = strlen($hex);
   $rgb['r'] = hexdec($length == 6 ? substr($hex, 0, 2) : ($length == 3 ? str_repeat(substr($hex, 0, 1), 2) : 0));
   $rgb['g'] = hexdec($length == 6 ? substr($hex, 2, 2) : ($length == 3 ? str_repeat(substr($hex, 1, 1), 2) : 0));
   $rgb['b'] = hexdec($length == 6 ? substr($hex, 4, 2) : ($length == 3 ? str_repeat(substr($hex, 2, 1), 2) : 0));
   if ( $alpha ) {
      $rgb['a'] = $alpha;
   }
   return $rgb;
}

Example of function responses

print_r(hexToRgb('#19b698'));
Array (
   [r] => 25
   [g] => 182
   [b] => 152
)

print_r(hexToRgb('19b698'));
Array (
   [r] => 25
   [g] => 182
   [b] => 152
)

print_r(hexToRgb('#19b698', 1));
Array (
   [r] => 25
   [g] => 182
   [b] => 152
   [a] => 1
)

print_r(hexToRgb('#fff'));
Array (
   [r] => 255
   [g] => 255
   [b] => 255
)

If you'd like to return the rgb(a) in CSS format just replace the return $rgb; line in the function with return implode(array_keys($rgb)) . '(' . implode(', ', $rgb) . ')';