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# XVII. Character Type Functions

# Introduction

The functions provided by this extension check whether a character or string falls into a certain character class according to the current locale (see also setlocale()).

When called with an integer argument these functions behave exactly like their C counterparts from `ctype.h`. It means that if you pass an integer smaller than 256 it will use the ASCII value of it to see if it fits in the specified range (digits are in 0x30-0x39). If the number is between -128 and -1 inclusive then 256 will be added and the check will be done on that.

When called with a string argument they will check every character in the string and will only return `TRUE` if every character in the string matches the requested criteria. When called with an empty string the result will always be `TRUE` in PHP < 5.1 and `FALSE` since 5.1.

Passing anything else but a string or integer will return `FALSE` immediately.

It should be noted that ctype functions are always preferred over regular expressions, and even to some equivalent str_* and is_* functions. This is because of the fact that ctype uses a native C library and thus processes significantly faster.

# Requirements

None besides functions from the standard C library which are always available.

# Installation

Beginning with PHP 4.2.0 these functions are enabled by default. For older versions you have to configure and compile PHP with `--enable-ctype`. You can disable ctype support with `--disable-ctype`.

The windows version of PHP has built in support for this extension. You do not need to load any additional extension in order to use these functions.

> Note: Builtin support for ctype is available with PHP 4.3.0.

# Runtime Configuration

This extension has no configuration directives defined in `php.ini`.

# Resource Types

This extension has no resource types defined.

# Predefined Constants

This extension has no constants defined.

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