Function to check if string length in greater than or less than required amount

php strlen
johnathan ross picture johnathan ross · Apr 3, 2011 · Viewed 24.8k times · Source

I want to create a function to check if the length of a string is greater than or less than a required amount:

Something like this:

function check_string_lenght($string, $min, $max)
{
 if ($string == "")
 {
   return x;   
 }
 elseif (strlen($string) > $max)
 {
   return y;
 } 
 elseif (strlen($string) < $min)
 {
   return z;
 }
 else
 {
   return $string;
 }

}

The problem is I don't know what to return. I don't want to return something like 'String is too short'. Maybe a number, 0 if == "", 1 if greater than, 2 if less than?

What would be the proper way of doing this?

Answer

Felix Kling picture Felix Kling · Apr 3, 2011

You can return 1, 0 and -1 like a lot of comparison functions do. In this case the return values could have these meanings:

  • 0: The string length is inside the bounds
  • -1: too short
  • 1: too long

I don't think there is a proper way for this. You just have to document and explain the return values.

Related questions

Add ... if string is too long PHP

I have a description field in my MySQL database, and I access the database on two different pages, one page I display the whole field, but on the other, I just want to display the first 50 characters. If the string …

Read More
Checking string length, max and minimum

Is there a function to check if a string is too long or too short, I normally end up writing something like this in several places: if (strlen($input) < 12) { echo "Input is too short, minimum is 12 characters (20 max)."; } elseif(…

Read More
Check if php get variable is set to anything?

I need to check if variables are set to something. Up till now I have been using strlen(), but that is really embarrassing as I am pretty sure that is not a very efficient function to be using over an …

Read More