fnmatch()

fnmatch() — Match filename against a pattern.

Built-in function of PHP 8.5. The manual lists it as available in PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8. This page is the reference card: signature, parameters and return value, plus the changelog and the example the manual provides.

What it does

fnmatch() checks if the passed filename would match the given shell wildcard pattern.

Signature

fnmatch(string $pattern, string $filename, int $flags = 0): bool

Parameters

Parameter	Type	What it takes
$pattern	string	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 ...
$filename	string	The tested string. This function is especially useful for filenames, but may also be used on regular strings.
$flags	int	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 value

Returns true if there is a match, false otherwise.

Example

A runnable snippet:

if (fnmatch("*gr[ae]y", $color)) { echo "some form of gray ..."; }