strstr() is not a way to avoid type-checking with strpos().
If $needle is the last character in $haystack, and testing $needle as a boolean by itself would evaluate to false, then testing strstr() as a boolean will evaluate to false (because, if successful, strstr() returns the first occurrence of $needle along with the rest of $haystack).
<?php
findZero('01234'); findZero('43210'); findZero('0'); findZero('00'); findZero('000'); findZero('10'); findZero('100'); function findZero($numberString) {
if (strstr($numberString, '0')) {
echo 'found a zero';
} else {
echo 'did not find a zero';
}
}
?>
Also, strstr() is far more memory-intensive than strpos(), especially with longer strings as your $haystack, so if you are not interested in the substring that strstr() returns, you shouldn't be using it anyway.
There is no PHP function just to check only _if_ $needle occurs in $haystack; strpos() tells you if it _doesn't_ by returning false, but, if it does occur, it tells you _where_ it occurs as an integer, which is 0 (zero) if $needle is the first part of $haystack, which is why testing if (strpos($needle, $haystack)===false) is the only way to know for sure if $needle is not part of $haystack.
My advice is to start loving type checking immediately, and to familiarize yourself with the return value of the functions you are using.
Cheers.
