How to check if a string contains any word from an array in PHP

Published on 25 April 2022

If you want to check if a string contains any word from an array, we can use the lovely str_contains() that was added in php 8.0:

function string_contains_any(string $haystack, array $needles, bool $ignoreCase = false) {
    if (! $ignoreCase) {
        $haystack = mb_strtolower($haystack);
    }
    
    foreach ($needles as $needle) {
        if (str_contains($haystack, $ignoreCase ? mb_strtolower($needle) : $needle)) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    
    return false;
}

The str_contains helper was added in php 8.0 If you're using an older version of php, you can use the code below instead:

function string_contains_any($haystack, $needles, $ignoreCase = false) {
    foreach ($needles as $needle) {
        $position = $ignoreCase ? stripos($haystack, $needle) : strpos($haystack, $needle);
    
        if ($position !== false) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    
    return false;
}

Check if string contains any in Laravel

If you're using Laravel, you can use the built-in Str::contains() helper. This helper accepts an array of needles to check for:

$bool = Str::contains($haystack, $needles)