Question

i’m triyin to match some phrase inside a string as a word (stristr doesn’t work beacause i dont want results that contain the “word”)

I use this code:

function striword($string, $word) {
    return preg_match("/(?:[[:space:]]|^)" . $word . "(?:[^\w]|$)/i", $string);
}

But when I try to match a string like “this is a string” it doesn’t work as expected 🙁

Example:

//Phrase to match: "soda and beer"

striword($string, "soda and beer");

String 1: "I like soda and beer" MATCH: TRUE
String 2: "I like soda and beerbum" MATCH: FALSE
String 3: "I like soda and beer, it's nice!" MATCH: TRUE

Answer 1

Two options:

Either use word boundary anchors (useful if you’re dealing with actual, alphanumeric words):

preg_match("/\b" . $word . "\b/i", $string);

Or use spaces as separators:

preg_match("/(?:^|\s)" . $word . "(?:\s|$)/i", $string);

If you’re using Unicode strings and want to match Unicode words, don’t forget the /u modifier.