elegant way to preg_match more than one word?

[Jalz]

Hi hopefully a simple one here.

 

I have the following line which searches for the word Cat in the animal session I have created.

 

if (preg_match ("/\bCat\b/i", $_SESSION['animal'])) { do some commands.

 

However I want to add alot more possible matches, i.e. Dog, Hamster, Cow, Horse etc etc. I thought I could use the following (which I haven't tried yet)

 

if (preg_match ("/\bCat\b/i", $_SESSION['animal']) || preg_match ("/\bDog\b/i", $_SESSION['animal'] || preg_match ("/\bHamster\b/i", $_SESSION['animal']) { do some commands.

 

Is this the way to filter for these words it or is there a shorthand I can use to filter out the 10 odd words I have.

 

Much appreciate your help.

Thanks

[salathe]

You can use alternation to look through a whole bunch of values. For example:

 

/\b(?:cat|dog|hamster|horse|badger|mushroom|snake)\b/i