title: match user input url to url in php variable
body: <p>There is a variable</p>
  
  <pre><code>$string = 'http://www.someurl.com/somerandom/page.php';
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>There is an input</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;input type="text" class="theurl" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I need to verify the first part of the data the user adds to the input matches the first part of the string. Meaning the user data should begin with:</p>
  
  <pre><code>http://www.someurl.com/
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But not verify whatever comes after that /, meaning the user can change the</p>
  
  <pre><code>somerandom/page.php
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>part of things. I am very much still learning php and have come a long way, but this is WAY over my head.</p>
  
  <p>Note I do not want to prefill the data for the user and do not know the variable link ahead of time. I just want to match and verify. Perhaps a mix of jquery/js and php?</p>
  
  <p>I don't even know where to begin. Help? Perhaps example code specific to my issue? </p>
  
  <p><strong>Update / Final</strong></p>
  
  <p>So far here is what i have figured out</p>
  
  <pre><code>$re = "/http:\\/\\/([^\\/\\r\\n]+)/"; 
  $string = $baffiliate; 
  $newstring = preg_match($re, $string, $matches);
  foreach($matches as $key=&gt;$value)
      {
      $value = $value;
      }
  if(strpos($_POST['affiliate'], $value) === false) {
  echo 'error';
  }else{
  ...do something
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I opted to use this solution as it didn't require an extra count of thee variable during test :) </p>