strncmp Binary safe string comparison of the first n characters &reftitle.description; intstrncmp stringstring1 stringstring2 intlength 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; string1 The first string. string2 The second string. length Number of characters to use in the comparison. &reftitle.returnvalues; Returns < 0 if string1 is less than string2; > 0 if string1 is greater than string2, and 0 if they are equal. &reftitle.seealso; strncasecmp preg_match substr_compare strcmp strstr substr