You can write wrapper functions in a PHP script and include it your index.php. e.g. function findFirst ($haystack, $needle, $before_needle=false, case_sensi

You can write wrapper functions in a PHP script and include it your index.php. e.g. function findFirst ($haystack, $needle, $before_needle=false, case_sensitive=false) { if (case_sensitive) { return stristr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle); } return strstr($haystack, $needle, $before_needle); } You can submit them as RFC to https://wiki.php.net/rfc https://wiki.php.net/rfc and maybe your suggestion end up in a future version of PHP. As PHP code in HHVM is almost as fast as C++ code, your wrapper functions will be still useful for you in the meantime.