fnmatch

(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

fnmatch — Match filename against a pattern

Description

fnmatch(string $pattern, string $filename, int $flags = 0): bool

fnmatch() checks if the passed filename would match the given shell wildcard pattern.

Parameters

pattern

The pattern to match against. Usually, the pattern will contain wildcards like '?' and '*'.

Wildcards to be used in pattern parameter
WildcardDescription
?Question mark will match any single character. For example, pattern "file?.txt" will match "file1.txt" and "fileA.txt", but will not match "file10.txt".
*Asterisk will match zero or more characters. For example, pattern "foo*.xml" will match "foo.xml" and "foobar.xml".
[ ]Square brackets are used to create ranges of ASCII codepoints or sets of characters. For example, pattern "index.php[45]" will match "index.php4" and "index.php5", but will not match "index.phpt". Well known ranges are [0-9], [a-z], and [A-Z]. Multiple sets and ranges can be used at the same time, for example [0-9a-zABC].
!Exclamation mark is used to negate characters within square brackets. For example, "[!A-Z]*.html" will match "demo.html", but will not match "Demo.html".
\Backslash is used to escape special characters. For example, "Name\?" will match "Name?", but will not match "Names".

filename

The tested string. This function is especially useful for filenames, but may also be used on regular strings.

The average user may be used to shell patterns or at least in their simplest form to '?' and '*' wildcards so using fnmatch() instead of preg_match() for frontend search expression input may be way more convenient for non-programming users.

flags

The value of flags can be any combination of the following flags, joined with the binary OR (|) operator.

A list of possible flags for fnmatch()
FlagDescription
FNM_NOESCAPEDisable backslash escaping.
FNM_PATHNAMESlash in string only matches slash in the given pattern.
FNM_PERIODLeading period in string must be exactly matched by period in the given pattern.
FNM_CASEFOLDCaseless match. Part of the GNU extension.

Return Values

Returns true if there is a match, false otherwise.

Examples

Example #1 Checking a color name against a shell wildcard pattern

<?php
if (fnmatch("*gr[ae]y", $color)) {
echo "some form of gray ...";
}
?>

Notes

Warning

For now, this function is not available on non-POSIX compliant systems except Windows.

See Also

  • glob() - Find pathnames matching a pattern
  • preg_match() - Perform a regular expression match
  • sscanf() - Parses input from a string according to a format
  • printf() - Output a formatted string
  • sprintf() - Return a formatted string