Comparing the prefix of two strings in php

Question

I want to compare the prefix of two strings to know if both are the same or different. Like if the format is the same.

Assume variable A contains a string with a prefix, i want to compare if the prefix of the value of variable A is the same with a string ie if($variableA == "che-123456") do something else do something else. The prefix CHE is what i want to compare.

Answer 1

I have written universal function for your question. You can use it :

function comparePrefixes($a, $b, $separator = "-", $caseSensitive = false) {

    if (!$caseSensitive) {
        $a = strtolower($a);
        $b = strtolower($b);
    }

    return substr($a, 0, strpos($a, $separator)) === substr($b, 0, strpos($b, $separator));
}


// Testcases

var_dump(comparePrefixes('chE-454545', 'ChE-78623')); //true
var_dump(comparePrefixes('chE.54545', 'ChE.78623', ".")); //true
var_dump(comparePrefixes('abcd-454545', 'abcd-78623')); //true
var_dump(comparePrefixes('chE-454545', 'ChE-78623', "-", true)); //false
var_dump(comparePrefixes('che-454545', 'che-78623', "-", true)); //true

// use case

$a = "che-1234";
$b = "che-5425";

if (comparePrefixes($a, $b)) {
    echo "prefixes are equal";
}

RUN CODE