Question

Here is the simple code i use for minimum 3 characters check.
I would like to make an exception if query is fully numeric ( code also has an option to search by case IDs, which are shorter than 3 characters).

<?php

if (strlen($_POST['Search'])>=3) {

include 'search.php';

} else {

$message = '3+ characters, please';

}

?>

Thanks for help 🙂

Answer 1

You should write something like this:

// make sure no notices are emitted if the input is not as expected
$search = isset($_POST['Search']) ? $_POST['Search'] : null;

if (!ctype_digit($search)) {
    // it's all digits
}
else if (strlen($search) < 3) {
    // error: less than three characters
}
else {
    // default case
}

Feel free to merge the branches is the default case and the “all digits” case should forward to the same code.

Important: Use only ctype_digit for checking if the input is all digits. is_numeric will return true for other types of input as well:

Numeric strings consist of optional sign, any number of digits,
optional decimal part and optional exponential part. Thus +0123.45e6
is a valid numeric value. Hexadecimal notation (0xFF) is allowed too
but only without sign, decimal and exponential part.