strncmp Binary safe string comparison of the first n characters &reftitle.description; intstrncmp stringstr1 stringstr2 intlen This function is similar to strcmp, with the difference that you can specify the (upper limit of the) number of characters from each string to be used in the comparison. Note that this comparison is case sensitive. &reftitle.parameters; str1 The first string. str2 The second string. len Number of characters to use in the comparison. &reftitle.returnvalues; Returns < 0 if str1 is less than str2; > 0 if str1 is greater than str2, and 0 if they are equal. &reftitle.seealso; strncasecmp preg_match substr_compare strcmp strstr substr