PHP Manual
Prev |  | Next

# strnatcmp

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

strnatcmp -- String comparisons using a "natural order" algorithm

## Description

int strnatcmp ( string str1, string str2 )

This function implements a comparison algorithm that orders alphanumeric strings in the way a human being would, this is described as a "natural ordering". An example of the difference between this algorithm and the regular computer string sorting algorithms (used in strcmp()) can be seen below:

`<?php $arr1 = $arr2 = array("img12.png", "img10.png", "img2.png", "img1.png"); echo "Standard string comparison\n"; usort($arr1, "strcmp"); print_r($arr1); echo "\nNatural order string comparison\n"; usort($arr2, "strnatcmp"); print_r($arr2); ?>`

The code above will generate the following output:

    Standard string comparison
    Array
    (
        [0] => img1.png
        [1] => img10.png
        [2] => img12.png
        [3] => img2.png
    )

    Natural order string comparison
    Array
    (
        [0] => img1.png
        [1] => img2.png
        [2] => img10.png
        [3] => img12.png
    )

For more information see: Martin Pool's Natural Order String Comparison page.

Similar to other string comparison functions, this one returns < 0 if str1 is less than str2; > 0 if str1 is greater than str2, and 0 if they are equal.

Note that this comparison is case sensitive.

See also ereg(), strcasecmp(), substr(), stristr(), strcmp(), strncmp(), strncasecmp(), strnatcasecmp(), strstr(), natsort() and natcasesort().

Prev | Home | Next
strnatcasecmp | Up | strncasecmp