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    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
    Wildcard Description
    ? 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()
    Flag Description
    FNM_NOESCAPE Disable backslash escaping.
    FNM_PATHNAME Slash in string only matches slash in the given pattern.
    FNM_PERIOD Leading period in string must be exactly matched by period in the given pattern.
    FNM_CASEFOLD Caseless 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

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    User Contributed Notes 7 notes

    up
    13
    me at rowanlewis dot com
    14 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.
    up
    1
    Sinured
    16 years ago
    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).
    up
    0
    bernd dot ebert at gmx dot net
    12 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.
    up
    0
    Frederik Krautwald
    17 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.
    up
    -1
    jk at ricochetsolutions dot com
    18 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
    ?>
    up
    -2
    theboydanny at gmail dot com
    17 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.
    up
    -3
    phlipping at yahoo dot com
    21 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";
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