An addition to my previous note: My statement regarding the FNM_* constants was wrong. They are available on POSIX-compliant systems (in other words, if fnmatch() is defined).
fnmatch
(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5, PHP 7)
fnmatch — Match filename against a pattern
Description
bool fnmatch
( string
$pattern
, string $string
[, int $flags = 0
] )
fnmatch() checks if the passed string would
match the given shell wildcard pattern.
Parameters
-
pattern -
The shell wildcard pattern.
-
string -
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
flagscan 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.
Changelog
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 5.3.0 | This function is now available on Windows platforms. |
Examples
Example #1 Checking a color name against a shell wildcard pattern
<?php
if (fnmatch("*gr[ae]y", $color)) {
echo "some form of gray ...";
}
?>
Notes
Warning
For now, this function is not available on non-POSIX compliant systems except Windows.
See Also
- glob() - Find pathnames matching a pattern
- preg_match() - Perform a regular expression match
- sscanf() - Parses input from a string according to a format
- printf() - Output a formatted string
- sprintf() - Return a formatted string
add a note
User Contributed Notes 9 notes
Sinured ¶
10 years ago
bernd dot ebert at gmx dot net ¶
5 years ago
There is a problem within the pcre_fnmatch-Function concerning backslashes. Those will be masked by preq_quote and ADDITONALLY by the strtr if FN_NOESCAPE is not set -> something like "*a(*" will finally result in "#^.*a\\(.*$#". Note the double backslash which effectively does NOT mask the "(" correctly.
Since preq_quote always matches a backslash I don't think that this'll work with using preg_quote at all.
me at rowanlewis dot com ¶
7 years ago
Here's a definitive solution, which supports negative character classes and the four documented flags.
<?php
if (!function_exists('fnmatch')) {
define('FNM_PATHNAME', 1);
define('FNM_NOESCAPE', 2);
define('FNM_PERIOD', 4);
define('FNM_CASEFOLD', 16);
function fnmatch($pattern, $string, $flags = 0) {
return pcre_fnmatch($pattern, $string, $flags);
}
}
function pcre_fnmatch($pattern, $string, $flags = 0) {
$modifiers = null;
$transforms = array(
'\*' => '.*',
'\?' => '.',
'\[\!' => '[^',
'\[' => '[',
'\]' => ']',
'\.' => '\.',
'\\' => '\\\\'
);
// Forward slash in string must be in pattern:
if ($flags & FNM_PATHNAME) {
$transforms['\*'] = '[^/]*';
}
// Back slash should not be escaped:
if ($flags & FNM_NOESCAPE) {
unset($transforms['\\']);
}
// Perform case insensitive match:
if ($flags & FNM_CASEFOLD) {
$modifiers .= 'i';
}
// Period at start must be the same as pattern:
if ($flags & FNM_PERIOD) {
if (strpos($string, '.') === 0 && strpos($pattern, '.') !== 0) return false;
}
$pattern = '#^'
. strtr(preg_quote($pattern, '#'), $transforms)
. '$#'
. $modifiers;
return (boolean)preg_match($pattern, $string);
}
?>
This probably needs further testing, but it seems to function identically to the native fnmatch implementation.
theboydanny at gmail dot com ¶
10 years ago
About the windows compat functions below:
I needed fnmatch for a application that had to work on Windows, took a look here and tested both. Jk's works for me, soywiz didn't (on WinXPSP2, PHP 5.2.3).
The only difference between them is addcslashes (soywiz) instead of preg_quote (jk). They _should_ both work, but for some reason soywiz's didn't for me. So YMMV.
However, to make JK's fnmatch() work with the example in the documentation, you also have to strtr the [ and ] in $pattern.
<?php
$pattern = strtr(preg_quote($pattern, '#'), array('\*' => '.*', '\?' => '.', '\[' => '[', '\]' => ']'));
?>
And thanks for the functions, guys.
jk at ricochetsolutions dot com ¶
11 years ago
soywiz's function didnt seem to work for me, but this did.
<?php
if(!function_exists('fnmatch')) {
function fnmatch($pattern, $string) {
return preg_match("#^".strtr(preg_quote($pattern, '#'), array('\*' => '.*', '\?' => '.'))."$#i", $string);
} // end
} // end if
?>
phlipping at yahoo dot com ¶
14 years ago
you couls also try this function that I wrote before I found fnmatch:
function WildToReg($str)
{
$s = "";
for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($str); $i++)
{
$c = $str{$i};
if ($c =='?')
$s .= '.'; // any character
else if ($c == '*')
$s .= '.*'; // 0 or more any characters
else if ($c == '[' || $c == ']')
$s .= $c; // one of characters within []
else
$s .= '\\' . $c;
}
$s = '^' . $s . '$';
//trim redundant ^ or $
//eg ^.*\.txt$ matches exactly the same as \.txt$
if (substr($s,0,3) == "^.*")
$s = substr($s,3);
if (substr($s,-3,3) == ".*$")
$s = substr($s,0,-3);
return $s;
}
if (ereg(WildToReg("*.txt"), $fn))
print "$fn is a text file";
else
print "$fn is not a text file";
Frederik Krautwald ¶
10 years ago
soywiz's function still doesn't seem to work -- at least not with PHP 5.2.3 on Windows -- but jk's does.
Sinured ¶
10 years ago
Possible flags (scratched out of fnmatch.h):
...::...
FNM_PATHNAME:
> Slash in $string only matches slash in $pattern.
FNM_PERIOD:
> Leading period in $string must be exactly matched by period in $pattern.
FNM_NOESCAPE:
> Disable backslash escaping.
FNM_NOSYS:
> Obsolescent.
FNM_FILE_NAME:
> Alias of FNM_PATHNAME.
FNM_LEADING_DIR:
> From fnmatch.h: /* Ignore `/...' after a match. */
FNM_CASEFOLD:
> Caseless match.
Since they’re appearing in file.c, but are not available in PHP, we’ll have to define them ourselves:
<?php
define('FNM_PATHNAME', 1);
define('FNM_PERIOD', 4);
define('FNM_NOESCAPE', 2);
// GNU extensions
define('FNM_FILE_NAME', FNM_PATHNAME);
define('FNM_LEADING_DIR', 8);
define('FNM_CASEFOLD', 16);
?>
I didn’t test any of these except casefold, which worked for me.
bwilcock at gmail dot com ¶
4 years ago
fnmatch is not 100% reliable. Bug 14185 is still open and may or may not have been patched.
In certain wildcard circumstance fnmatch("*needle*", $haystack, match) returns false intermittantly
However stripos or preg returns a "find".
