PHP string functions to Class

Would it be better if all PHP string functions are methods of a String class?
Would that make working with strings an easy job? and make the code easier to read and maintain?

Here is my experiment on wrapping some of the built in functions into a class.

Let say we want to modify a string:

1. Reverse the letters
2. Uppercase each word
3. Replace all white spaces with “_”
4. Convert the string into array

Using PHP built-in functions:

Example 1

$string = 'hello mohammed';
$string = explode('_', str_replace(' ','_', ucfirst(strrev($string))));

Example 2

$string = 'hello mohammed';
$string = strrev($string);
$string = ucfirst($string);
$string = str_replace(' ','_', $string);
$string = explode('_', $string);

Object Oriented Approach:

The String class:

/**
 * @author     Mohammed Alsharaf
 * @category   My
 * @package    My_String
 * @copyright  Copyright (c) 2008-2009 Mohammed Alsharaf.
 * @license    http://framework.zend.com/license/new-bsd
 */
class My_String {
    protected $_string = '';
    protected $_info = array();
    
    public function __construct($string=null) {
        $string = empty($string)? '' : $string;
        $this->_string = $string;
    }
    
    public function reverse() {
    	$this->_string = strrev($this->_string);
    	return $this;
    }
    
    public function extract($start, $length) {
    	$this->_string = substr($this->_string, $start, $length);
    	return $this;
    }
    
    public function wordwrap($width, $break = "\n", $cut = false) {
    	$this->_string = wordwrap($this->_string, $width, $break, $cut);
    	return $this;
    }
    
    public function ucfirst() {
    	$this->_string = ucfirst($this->_string);
    	return $this;
    }
    
    public function toLowerCase() {
    	$this->_string = strtolower($this->_string);
    	return $this;
    }
    
    public function replace($search, $replace, $caseInsensitive = false) {
    	$result = '';
    	if($caseInsensitive === false) {
    		$this->_string = str_replace($search, $replace, $this->_string, $result);
    	} else {
    		$this->_string = str_ireplace($search, $replace, $this->_string, $result);
    	}
    	$this->_setInfo(__METHOD__, $result);
    	return $this;
    }
    
    public function toArray($delimiter = '_', $limit=null) { 
        if(null === $limit) {
           $string = explode($delimiter, $this->_string);
        } else {
           $string = explode($delimiter, $this->_string, $limit);
        }
        if(false === $string) {
        	$string = array();
        }
    	return new My_Array($string);
    }
 
 	public function getInfo() {
 		return $this->_info;
 	}
 	
 	protected function _setInfo($method, $data) {
 		$this->_info[$method] = $data;
 		return $this;
 	}
 	
    public function __toString() {
    	return $this->_string;
    }
}

Usage:

$string = new My_String('hello mohammed');
$newString = $string->reverse()
		   ->ucfirst()
		   ->replace(' ', '_')
		   ->toArray('_');

In my opinon the object oriented approach is much better than using the built-in functions for the reasons:

1. Cleaner to read
2. Easier to use and maintain
3. Looks cool 🙂
4. Its Object Oriented Programming

Ok, what about the preformace?

Bechmark the above examples using Pear Bechmark, the result is as follow:

Using OOP:

	time index	ex time	%
Start	1255570008.74220000	–	0.00%
Mark1	1255570008.74292300	0.000723	95.01%
Stop	1255570008.74296100	0.000038	4.99%
total	–	0.000761	100.00%

PHP built-in functions (Example 1):

	time index	ex time	%
Start	1255569909.34220000	–	0.00%
Mark1	1255569909.34224100	0.000041	54.67%
Stop	1255569909.34227500	0.000034	45.33%
total	–	0.000075	100.00%

PHP built-in functions (Example 2):

	time index	ex time	%
Start	1255569968.43419900	–	0.00%
Mark1	1255569968.43424400	0.000045	56.96%
Stop	1255569968.43427800	0.000034	43.04%
total	–	0.000079	100.00%

The Benchmark code used:

// Ensure library/ is on include_path
set_include_path(implode(PATH_SEPARATOR, array(
	realpath('C:\Apache Software Foundation\htdocs\test\library'),
	get_include_path(),
)));

require_once 'Benchmark/Timer.php';

$timer = new Benchmark_Timer();
$timer->start();

/*** here examples code ***/

$timer->setMarker('Mark1');

$timer->stop();
$timer->display();

What is your thoughts on this?