Question

Im trying to create a function to check for a substring within a string in php.

public static function stringCheck ($string, $substring) {
  $patern = "/".$substring."/";

  if (preg_match($substring, string) {
    return true;
  }
  else return false;
}

but if i enter a special character used in preg_match (^.[$()|*+?{) it screws up the search.

I tried something like the code below but that didnt work

$speicalChar = '/(\^|\.|\[|\$|\(|\)|\*|\+|\?|\{|\\)/';

Anyone have a solution or maybe an alternative to preg_match. keep in mind that i want to be able to check for symbols too. I tried using strstr but had issues with symbols.

Thanks =]

Answer 1

$pattern = '/' . preg_quote($substring, '/') . '/';

This escapes special characters for you. Also pass in '/' so it gets escaped as well since you’re using it as a delimiter.

Another thing, fixes for some typos in your if condition:

if (preg_match($pattern, $string)) {