strncmp

    (PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    strncmp — Binary safe string comparison of the first n characters

    Description

    strncmp(string $string1, string $string2, int $length): int

    This function is similar to strcmp(), with the difference that you can specify the (upper limit of the) number of characters from each string to be used in the comparison.

    Note that this comparison is case sensitive.

    Parameters

    string1

    The first string.

    string2

    The second string.

    length

    Number of characters to use in the comparison.

    Return Values

    Returns -1 if string1 is less than string2; 1 if string1 is greater than string2, and 0 if they are equal.

    Changelog

    Version Description
    8.2.0 This function now returns -1 or 1, where it previously returned a negative or positive number.

    Examples

    Example #1 strncmp() example

    <?php

    $var1     = 'Hello John';
    $var2 = 'Hello Doe';
    if (    strncmp($var1, $var2, 5) === 0) {
    echo     'First 5 characters of $var1 and $var2 are equals in a case-sensitive string comparison';
    }
    ?>

    See Also

    • strncasecmp() - Binary safe case-insensitive string comparison of the first n characters
    • preg_match() - Perform a regular expression match
    • substr_compare() - Binary safe comparison of two strings from an offset, up to length characters
    • strcmp() - Binary safe string comparison
    • strstr() - Find the first occurrence of a string
    • substr() - Return part of a string

    Improve This Page

    Learn How To Improve This Page • Submit a Pull Request • Report a Bug
    ＋add a note

    User Contributed Notes

    There are no user contributed notes for this page.
    To Top