Equal to SQL's %like% but in PHP

Question

Is there any function in PHP equal to SQL's %like%?

E.g.

$a = 'I drove the Car';
$b = 'i_drove_the_car';

if(like($a, $b))
{
 echo "The strings have an %like% match";
}

Answer 1

Use strstr, or, if you want case insensitive, stristr:

if(strstr($a, $b)) {
    echo "$b is in $a";
}

Answer 2

You can use regular expression, i.e. preg_match.

if (preg_match('#.*' . $b . '.*#/i', $a)) {
    echo 'smth';
}

Option i means case insensetive mathcing.