Remove first 4 characters of a string with PHP

Question

How can I remove the first 4 characters of a string using PHP?

Answer 1

function String2Stars($string='',$first=0,$last=0,$rep='*'){
  $begin  = substr($string,0,$first);
  $middle = str_repeat($rep,strlen(substr($string,$first,$last)));
  $end    = substr($string,$last);
  $stars  = $begin.$middle.$end;
  return $stars;
}

example

$string = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';
echo String2Stars($string,5,-5);   // abcde****************vwxyz