note 60111 deleted from function.strspn by mazzanet

Note Submitter: AT-HE (at_he AT hotm4il DOT com) ---- USEFUL TO FIND FORBIDDEN CHARACTERS IN A STRING, according to a pattern!, in conjunction with string length. finds the position of the first of any characters on the pattern, against string lenght. useful to catch illegal characters in a string, e.g. in names, forms, filenames, emails, numbers, urls, etc.. examples: <?php //example one: natural numbers $allowed="0123456789"; if (strlen($number) != strspn($number,$allowed)) { echo "i said only numbers!"; } //example two: email (with some characters) $allowed="qwertyasdf123@._"; if (strlen($email) != strspn($email,$allowed)) { echo "invalid email!"; } // examle three: filenames or urls (with some characters) $allowed="asdfASDF123/-_~."; if (strlen($path) != strspn($path,$allowed)) { echo "invalid path!"; } // THANKS ?> another variant, assuming a value diffrent to zero as TRUE: <?php if (strlen($email)-strspn($email,$"qwerty123@._")) { echo "dont try to fool me, invalid email"; } ?>