searching array

Anon

I have an array of numbers which I need to search for a match to a string. If the any values in the array matches the string value the text will be printed. Since ereg is just for strings and I cant find anything in the array reference I cant seem to solve this problem.

I have tried imploding the array with :: separation but obviously ereg then matches 16 when looing for 1 etc.

Does anyone know of a function I dont know about? I would really like an elegant solution because I know this problem will come up again.

Thanks very much.

Anon

If you are using PHP4 there is some function called in_array($searchword, $arrayname); returns true or false

Anon

Hello friend,
Your problem can be easily remedied with preg_grep(). It is the equivelent to Perl's grep() function and the Unix Grep application. What it does is search every element in an array for a specified string and returns every matched array element.
Here us the syntax for the preg_grep() function:

array preg_grep(pattern, array);

and here is an example it in use:

$matched = preg_grep("/php/i", $array);

What this does, is run through every element in $array and search for "php". If this looks a little strange to you, it's because it's a Perl regular expression. The "i" modifier means case insensitive.

<?php

$array = array("Burger King", "Dairy Queen", "Taco Bell", "Jack in the Box");

foreach(preg_grep("/taco/i", $array) as $found){
print $found;
}