strncasecmp
For checking matches at the beginning of a short string, strpos() is about 15% faster than strncmp().
Here's a benchmark program to prove it:
<?php
$haystack = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
$needles = array('abc', 'xyz', '123');
foreach ($needles as $needle) {
$times['strncmp'][$needle] = -microtime(true);
for ($i = 0; $i < 1000000; $i++) {
$result = strncmp($haystack, $needle, 3) === 0;
}
$times['strncmp'][$needle] += microtime(true);
}
foreach ($needles as $needle) {
$times['strpos'][$needle] = -microtime(true);
for ($i = 0; $i < 1000000; $i++) {
$result = strpos($haystack, $needle) === 0;
}
$times['strpos'][$needle] += microtime(true);
}
var_export($times);
?>
strncmp
(PHP 4, PHP 5)
strncmp — Binary safe string comparison of the first n characters
Description
int strncmp
( string
$str1
, string $str2
, int $len
)This function is similar to strcmp(), with the difference that you can specify the (upper limit of the) number of characters from each string to be used in the comparison.
Note that this comparison is case sensitive.
Parameters
-
str1 -
The first string.
-
str2 -
The second string.
-
len -
Number of characters to use in the comparison.
Return Values
Returns < 0 if str1 is less than
str2; > 0 if str1
is greater than str2, and 0 if they are
equal.
See Also
- strncasecmp() - Binary safe case-insensitive string comparison of the first n characters
- preg_match() - Perform a regular expression match
- substr_compare() - Binary safe comparison of two strings from an offset, up to length characters
- strcmp() - Binary safe string comparison
- strstr() - Find the first occurrence of a string
- substr() - Return part of a string
add a note
User Contributed Notes
strncmp
bobvin at pillars dot net
19-May-2011 07:25
elloromtz at gmail dot com
19-Apr-2010 05:25
if length is 0 regardless what the two strings are, it will return 0
<?php
strncmp("xybc","a3234",0); // 0
strncmp("blah123","hohoho", 0); //0
?>
codeguru at crazyprogrammer dot cba dot pl
24-Jan-2008 11:07
I ran the following experiment to compare arrays.
1 st - using (substr($key,0,5 == "HTTP_") & 2 nd - using (!strncmp($key, 'HTTP_', 5))
I wanted to work out the fastest way to get the first few characters from a array
BENCHMARK ITERATION RESULT IS:
if (substr($key,0,5 == "HTTP_").... - 0,000481s
if (!strncmp($key, 'HTTP_', 5)).... - 0,000405s
strncmp() is 20% faster than substr() :D
<?php
// SAMPLE FUNCTION
function strncmp_match($arr)
{
foreach ($arr as $key => $val)
{
//if (substr($key,0,5 == "HTTP_")
if (!strncmp($key, 'HTTP_', 5))
{
$out[$key] = $val;
}
}
return $out;
}
// EXAMPLE USE
?><pre><?php
print_r(strncmp_match($_SERVER));
?></pre>
will display code like this:
Array
(
[HTTP_ACCEPT] => XXX
[HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE] => pl
[HTTP_UA_CPU] => x64
[HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING] => gzip, deflate
[HTTP_USER_AGENT] => Mozilla/4.0
(compatible; MSIE 7.0;
Windows NT 5.1;
.NET CLR 1.1.4322;
.NET CLR 2.0.50727)
[HTTP_HOST] => XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
[HTTP_CONNECTION] => Keep-Alive
[HTTP_COOKIE] => __utma=XX;__utmz=XX.utmccn=(direct)|utmcsr=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)
)
Anonymous
17-Apr-2002 04:46
strncmp("sample","sam",4) returns 1 because the final requirement is if one string terminates before len, then the other must also terminate at that position.
You can imagine that all your strings have one more final, invisible "termination" character. If that termination character happens to be within in len, then it must match, too.
For instance, write that termination character with, say, the sequence "\0". Then you can equivalently consider that function call as strncmp("sample\0","sam\0",4).
So, the "p" in "sample" does not match the termination character in "sam".