Question

How to check if each letter in a string maps to the first letter of a word in another string with PHP

Answer 1

function matchesPattern(string $pattern, string $sentence): bool
{
    // Split sentence into words (handles multiple spaces automatically)
    $words = preg_split('/\s+/', trim($sentence));

    // Length mismatch → automatic failure
    if (strlen($pattern) !== count($words)) {
        return false;
    }

    // Compare each pattern character to the first letter of each word
    for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($pattern); $i++) {
        $p = strtolower($pattern[$i]);
        $w = strtolower($words[$i][0]);

        if ($p !== $w) {
            return false;
        }
    }

    return true;
}

$pattern = "jpcrg";
$sentence = "java python c rust go";

if (matchesPattern($pattern, $sentence)) {
    echo "Pattern matches!\n";
} else {
    echo "Pattern does NOT match.\n";
}




/*
run:

Pattern matches!

*/

 

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