Question

I’m trying to figure out how I can compare values from an array against a particular string.

Basically my values look like chrisx001, chrisx002, chrisx003, chrisx004, bob001

I was looking at fnmatch() but I’m not sure this is the right choice, as what I want to do is keep chrisx— but ignore bob— so I need to wildcard the last bit, is there a means of doing this where I can be like

if($value == "chrisx%"){/*do something*/}

and if thats possible is it possible to double check the % value as int or similar in other cases?

Answer 1

Regex can tell you if a string starts with chrisx:

if (preg_match('/^chrisx/', $subject)) {
  // Starts with chrisx
}

You can also capture the bit after chrisx:

preg_match('/^chrisx(.*)/', $subject, $matches);

echo $matches[1];