How to remove the first character of string in PHP?

Question

$str=\':this is a applepie :) \';

How to use PHP, Remove the first character :

Answer 1

Exec time for the 3 answers :

Remove the first letter by replacing the case

$str = "hello";
$str[0] = "";
// $str[0] = false;
// $str[0] = null;
// replaced by �, but ok for echo

Exec time for 1.000.000 tests : 0.39602184295654 sec

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Remove the first letter with substr()

$str = "hello";
$str = substr($str, 1);

Exec time for 1.000.000 tests : 5.153294801712 sec

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Remove the first letter with ltrim()

$str = "hello";
$str= ltrim ($str,'h');

Exec time for 1.000.000 tests : 5.2393000125885 sec

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Remove the first letter with preg_replace()

$str = "hello";
$str = preg_replace('/^./', '', $str);

Exec time for 1.000.000 tests : 6.8543920516968 sec