<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >strncmp</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="PHP Manual" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="String functions" HREF="ref.strings.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="strncasecmp" HREF="function.strncasecmp.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="strpos" HREF="function.strpos.html"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="refentry" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >PHP Manual</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="function.strncasecmp.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="function.strpos.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><H1 ><A NAME="function.strncmp" ></A >strncmp</H1 ><DIV CLASS="refnamediv" ><A NAME="AEN91329" ></A ><P > (PHP 4 )</P >strncmp -- Binary safe string comparison of the first n characters </DIV ><DIV CLASS="refsect1" ><A NAME="AEN91332" ></A ><H2 >Description</H2 >int <B CLASS="methodname" >strncmp</B > ( string str1, string str2, int len)<BR ></BR ><P > This function is similar to <A HREF="function.strcmp.html" ><B CLASS="function" >strcmp()</B ></A >, with the difference that you can specify the (upper limit of the) number of characters (<TT CLASS="parameter" ><I >len</I ></TT >) from each string to be used in the comparison. If any of the strings is shorter than <TT CLASS="parameter" ><I >len</I ></TT >, then the length of that string will be used for the comparison. </P ><P > Returns < 0 if <TT CLASS="parameter" ><I >str1</I ></TT > is less than <TT CLASS="parameter" ><I >str2</I ></TT >; > 0 if <TT CLASS="parameter" ><I >str1</I ></TT > is greater than <TT CLASS="parameter" ><I >str2</I ></TT >, and 0 if they are equal. </P ><P > Note that this comparison is case sensitive. </P ><P > See also <A HREF="function.ereg.html" ><B CLASS="function" >ereg()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.strncasecmp.html" ><B CLASS="function" >strncasecmp()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.strcasecmp.html" ><B CLASS="function" >strcasecmp()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.substr.html" ><B CLASS="function" >substr()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.stristr.html" ><B CLASS="function" >stristr()</B ></A >, <A HREF="function.strcmp.html" ><B CLASS="function" >strcmp()</B ></A >, and <A HREF="function.strstr.html" ><B CLASS="function" >strstr()</B ></A >. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="function.strncasecmp.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="function.strpos.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >strncasecmp</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="ref.strings.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >strpos</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >