arrays - Php preg_match with wild card characters

Solution:

One of the problems is that using234* in a regex will match any number of4's.

The other problem is that you match to the end (using$) but not the start, so789 (with the.* appended) will also match (as it's in the middle). In this code, I use^{$zip}$, with* replaced with.* to match any trailing characters...

$zip_codes = array( '12556', '765547', '789', '234', '234*', '987*' );
$target_zip = '2347890';

foreach( $zip_codes as $zip ) {
    $zip = str_replace("*", ".*", $zip);
    if ( preg_match( "/^{$zip}$/i", $target_zip ) ) {
        echo $zip.' matched'.PHP_EOL;
        break;
    }
    else {
        echo $zip.' not matched'.PHP_EOL;
    }
}
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Solution:

You don't need regex here.

You can look for* and based on that look for an exact on the number of characters -1.

$zip_codes = array( '12556', '765547', '234*', '987*' );
$target_zip = '2347890';


foreach($zip_codes as $zip){
    if(strpos($zip, "*") !== false){
      //if "234* -1 = "234"    == substr("2347890",0,3)
        if(substr($zip, 0, -1) == substr($target_zip, 0, strlen($zip)-1)){
            echo "wildcard match";
        }
    }else{
        if($zip == $target_zip){
            echo "excat match";
        }
    }
}
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https://3v4l.org/hIGER

Solution:

You need to turn your$zip values into valid regular expressions by converting* into.* (or perhaps\d*); then you can test them against$target_zip:

$zip_codes = array( '12556', '765547', '234*', '987*' );
$target_zip = '2347890';

foreach( $zip_codes as $zip ) {
    echo $zip;
    if (preg_match('/' . str_replace('*', '.*', $zip) . '/', $target_zip)) {
        echo ' matched'. PHP_EOL;
        break;
    }
    else {
        echo ' not matched' . PHP_EOL;
    }
}
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Output:

12556 not matched
765547 not matched
234* matched
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Demo on 3v4l.org

You haven't indicated whether you want the value in$zip_codes to match the entire$target_zip value or just part of it. The code above will work for just part (i.e.234 will match12345); if you don't want that, change the regex construction to:

if (preg_match('/^' . str_replace('*', '.*', $zip) . '$/', $target_zip)) {
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The anchors will ensure that$zip matches the entirety of$target_zip.

Solution:

The issue is that in the loop, the pattern is always the same:

if ( preg_match( "/2347890.*$/i", $zip ) ) {

I think you meant to use the value of$zip as part of the pattern, which causes the issue repeating the last digit 0+ times in:

if ( preg_match( "/234*.*$/i", $zip ) ) {
                     ^^
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As an alternative, you could also extract the digits from$zip_codes using a capturing group and match optional following*

^(\d+)\**$
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Regex demo

Then use strpos to check if thetarget_zip start with the extracted digits.

$zip_codes = array( '12556', '765547', '234*', '987*', '237' );
$target_zip = '2347890';

foreach($zip_codes as $zip ) {
    $digitsOnly = preg_replace("~^(\d+)\**$~", "$1", $zip);
    if (strpos($target_zip, $digitsOnly) === 0) {
        echo "$zip matched $target_zip" . PHP_EOL;
        break;
    }
    else {
        echo "$zip not matched $target_zip" . PHP_EOL;
    }
}
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Output

12556 not matched 2347890
765547 not matched 2347890
234* matched 2347890
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Php demo