compare portion of the string using php

I want to check whether the search keyword 'cli' or 'ent' or 'cl' word exists in the string 'client' and case insensitive. I used the preg_match function with the pattern '\bclient\b'. but it is not showing the correct result. Match not found error getting.

Please anyone help

Th开发者_开发百科anks

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I wouldn't use regular expressions for this, it's extra overhead and complexity where a regular string function would suffice. Why not go with stripos() instead?

$str = 'client';
$terms = array('cli','ent','cl');
foreach($terms as $t) {
    if (stripos($str,$t) !== false) {
        echo "$t exists in $str";
        break;
    }
}

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Try the pattern /cli?|ent/

Explanation:

cli matches the first part. The i? makes the i optional in the search.

| means or, and that matches cli, or ent.

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\b is word boundary, It would not match cli in client, you need to remove \b