# strncmp

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

strncmp — Binary safe string comparison of the first n characters

### Description

int strncmp ( string `$str1` , string `$str2` , int `$len` )

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.

### Parameters

`str1`

  The first string.

`str2`

  The second string.

`len`

  Number of characters to use in the comparison.

### Return Values

Returns < 0 if `str1` is less than `str2` ; > 0 if `str1` is greater than `str2` , and 0 if they are equal.

### See Also

- preg_match()
- strcmp()
- strcasecmp()
- substr()
- stristr()
- strncasecmp()
- strstr()