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<title>Binary safe string comparison of the first n characters</title>
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<h1 class="refname">strncmp</h1>
<p class="verinfo">(PHP 4, PHP 5)</p><p class="refpurpose"><span class="refname">strncmp</span> — <span class="dc-title">Binary safe string comparison of the first n characters</span></p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 description" id="refsect1-function.strncmp-description">
<h3 class="title">Description</h3>
<div class="methodsynopsis dc-description">
<span class="type">int</span> <span class="methodname"><strong>strncmp</strong></span>
( <span class="methodparam"><span class="type">string</span> <code class="parameter">$str1</code></span>
, <span class="methodparam"><span class="type">string</span> <code class="parameter">$str2</code></span>
, <span class="methodparam"><span class="type">int</span> <code class="parameter">$len</code></span>
)</div>
<p class="para rdfs-comment">
This function is similar to <span class="function"><a href="function.strcmp.html" class="function">strcmp()</a></span>, with the
difference that you can specify the (upper limit of the) number of
characters from each string to be used in the comparison.
</p>
<p class="para">
Note that this comparison is case sensitive.
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 parameters" id="refsect1-function.strncmp-parameters">
<h3 class="title">Parameters</h3>
<p class="para">
<dl>
<dt>
<span class="term"><em><code class="parameter">str1</code></em></span>
<dd>
<p class="para">
The first string.
</p>
</dd>
</dt>
<dt>
<span class="term"><em><code class="parameter">str2</code></em></span>
<dd>
<p class="para">
The second string.
</p>
</dd>
</dt>
<dt>
<span class="term"><em><code class="parameter">len</code></em></span>
<dd>
<p class="para">
Number of characters to use in the comparison.
</p>
</dd>
</dt>
</dl>
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 returnvalues" id="refsect1-function.strncmp-returnvalues">
<h3 class="title">Return Values</h3>
<p class="para">
Returns < 0 if <em><code class="parameter">str1</code></em> is less than
<em><code class="parameter">str2</code></em>; > 0 if <em><code class="parameter">str1</code></em>
is greater than <em><code class="parameter">str2</code></em>, and 0 if they are
equal.
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1 seealso" id="refsect1-function.strncmp-seealso">
<h3 class="title">See Also</h3>
<p class="para">
<ul class="simplelist">
<li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.strncasecmp.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">strncasecmp()</a> - Binary safe case-insensitive string comparison of the first n characters</span></li>
<li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.preg-match.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">preg_match()</a> - Perform a regular expression match</span></li>
<li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.substr-compare.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">substr_compare()</a> - Binary safe comparison of two strings from an offset, up to length characters</span></li>
<li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.strcmp.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">strcmp()</a> - Binary safe string comparison</span></li>
<li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.strstr.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">strstr()</a> - Find the first occurrence of a string</span></li>
<li class="member"> <span class="function"><a href="function.substr.html" class="function" rel="rdfs-seeAlso">substr()</a> - Return part of a string</span></li>
</ul>
</p>
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