(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
fnmatch — Match filename against a pattern
fnmatch() checks if the passed filename would
match the given shell wildcard pattern.
pattern
The pattern to match against. Usually, the pattern will contain
wildcards like '?' and '*'.
| Wildcard | Description |
|---|---|
?
|
Question mark will match any single character.
For example, pattern "file?.txt" will match "file1.txt" and
"fileA.txt", but will not match "file10.txt".
|
*
|
Asterisk will match zero or more characters.
For example, pattern "foo*.xml" will match "foo.xml" and
"foobar.xml".
|
[ ]
|
Square brackets are used to create ranges of ASCII codepoints or sets of characters.
For example, pattern "index.php[45]" will match "index.php4" and
"index.php5", but will not match "index.phpt".
Well known ranges are [0-9], [a-z], and [A-Z].
Multiple sets and ranges can be used at the same time, for example [0-9a-zABC].
|
!
|
Exclamation mark is used to negate characters within square brackets.
For example, "[!A-Z]*.html" will match "demo.html", but will not match
"Demo.html".
|
\
|
Backslash is used to escape special characters.
For example, "Name\?" will match "Name?", but will not match
"Names".
|
filenameThe tested string. This function is especially useful for filenames, but may also be used on regular strings.
The average user may be used to shell patterns or at least in their
simplest form to '?' and '*'
wildcards so using fnmatch() instead of
preg_match() for
frontend search expression input may be way more convenient for
non-programming users.
flags
The value of flags can be any combination of
the following flags, joined with the
binary OR (|) operator.
Flag |
Description |
|---|---|
FNM_NOESCAPE |
Disable backslash escaping. |
FNM_PATHNAME |
Slash in string only matches slash in the given pattern. |
FNM_PERIOD |
Leading period in string must be exactly matched by period in the given pattern. |
FNM_CASEFOLD |
Caseless match. Part of the GNU extension. |
Example #1 Checking a color name against a shell wildcard pattern
<?php
if (fnmatch("*gr[ae]y", $color)) {
echo "some form of gray ...";
}
?>For now, this function is not available on non-POSIX compliant systems except Windows.