How do I check if a string contains a specific word?

Answer 1

I had some trouble with this, and finally I chose to create my own solution. Without using regular expression engine:

function contains($text, $word)
{
    $found = false;
    $spaceArray = explode(' ', $text);

    $nonBreakingSpaceArray = explode(chr(160), $text);

    if (in_array($word, $spaceArray) ||
        in_array($word, $nonBreakingSpaceArray)
       ) {

        $found = true;
    }
    return $found;
 }

You may notice that the previous solutions are not an answer for the word being used as a prefix for another. In order to use your example:

$a = 'How are you?';
$b = "a skirt that flares from the waist";
$c = "are";

With the samples above, both $a and $b contains $c, but you may want your function to tell you that only $a contains $c.