IP and hostname comparing

I want to compare a IP adress with a IP "String" with wildcards (*)

like 127.0.0.1 equals to 127.*.*.*
and 255.255.255.0 equals *.255.255.0

"Bjerkås" <bj******@sensewave.com> wrote in message
news:<Tn********************@news2.e.nsc.no>...

I want to compare a IP adress with a IP "String" with wildcards (*)

like 127.0.0.1 equals to 127.*.*.*
and 255.255.255.0 equals *.255.255.0

$ip1 = '127.0.0.1';
$ip2 = '127.*.*.*';
$numbers1 = explode ('.', $ip1);
$numbers2 = explode ('.', $ip2);
for ($i = 0; $i < 4; $i++) {
if (($numbers1[$i] == $numbers2[$i]) or
($numbers1[$i] == '*') or
($numbers1[$i] == '*')) {
$match = true;
} else {
$match = false;
break;
}
}
if ($match) {
echo $ip1, ' matches ', $ip2;
} else {
echo $ip1, ' does not match ', $ip2;
}

Cheers,
NC

What does the explode function do anyways