help with issue?

[shank]

I made a form and all works well, but in the form I have an input for cost. what it does now is if the user (me) put the word "Warranty" in for this line it gives me the option to fill out a warranty sheet.

What I need to do is make it where if the word warranty is anywhere in what I enter here it will give me the option instead of just when it is an exact match.

for instance:

cost: Warranty

gives me the option, which is what I thought I wanted when I wrote it.

cost: Parts warranty, Labor $140

Does not give option, but this is what I want to change to make this more functional for my needs.

I know this is a simple answer, but one I don't know, and can't find.

The code I am using now is:

if ($cost=='Warranty')

Thanks,
Steve

[Horizon88]

if (stripos($cost, 'warranty')) {
   echo 'cost contains the word warranty';
}
else {
  echo 'no warranty';
}

Matches case insensitive, "warranty"

Edit: or should, at least.

[NogDog]

If using PHP4 (no stripos() function):

if(preg_match('/warranty/i', $cost))
{
   // found the word 'warranty' (case-insensitive)
}

[Horizon88]

NogDog: would strpos(strtolower($cost), 'warranty') be less intensive than the preg_match?

[shank]

I tried both ways, and they both work.
Thanks,
Steve

[Horizon88]

If you have php5, stripos would be the fastest way to go. if you're stuck on php4, I'm not sure which is faster, but I'd suspect they'd be almost the same, what with the two function calls versus the regular expression.

[shank]

I am using php 5.0.3

and it did seem just a tab faster using (strpos(strtolower($cost), 'warranty'))

[NogDog]

With php5, stripos() is available, which is the case-insensitive version. I just suggested the preg_match() version as an alternative for PHP4 as a way to do the same basic thing in a case-insensitive manner. Using strpos() in conjunction with strtolower() is just as good functionally. I doubt that there is a significant performance edge to either, since it is such a simple regular expression versus two separate functions; so I'd just use whichever you are more comfortable with and feel will be easiest to maintain when you update the code a year from now. 🙂

[NogDog]

PS: If using strpos() or stripos(), be sure to do a "not identical to false" comparison, as if the string begins with the word then it will return position 0, which will be evaluated as false in a non-type-specific comparison:

if(stripos($cost, 'warranty') !== false) // note use of "!==" vs. "!="
{
   // contains the word 'warranty'
}