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
?>
strncmp
(PHP 4, PHP 5)
strncmp — Binary safe string comparison of the first n characters
Description
int strncmp
( string
$str1
, string $str2
, int $len
)This function is similar to strcmp(), with the difference that you can specify the (upper limit of the) number of characters from each string to be used in the comparison.
Note that this comparison is case sensitive.
Parameters
-
str1 -
The first string.
-
str2 -
The second string.
-
len -
Number of characters to use in the comparison.
Return Values
Returns < 0 if str1 is less than
str2; > 0 if str1
is greater than str2, and 0 if they are
equal.
See Also
- strncasecmp() - Binary safe case-insensitive string comparison of the first n characters
- preg_match() - Perform a regular expression match
- substr_compare() - Binary safe comparison of two strings from an offset, up to length characters
- strcmp() - Binary safe string comparison
- strstr() - Find the first occurrence of a string
- substr() - Return part of a string
elloromtz at gmail dot com ¶
3 years ago
codeguru at crazyprogrammer dot cba dot pl ¶
5 years ago
I ran the following experiment to compare arrays.
1 st - using (substr($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)
)
bobvin at pillars dot net ¶
1 year ago
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);
?>
Anonymous ¶
3 months ago
Returns FALSE if $len is negative or NAN.
Floating point values for $len are rounded towards 0.
Anonymous ¶
11 years ago
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".
