Q:

Wildcards in php's strpos function

I'm looking for some wildcards to the strpos function similar to those used in preg_replace or preg_match but I can't find any, here is an idea:
<?php
if (strpos("The black\t\t\thorse", "black horse") === false)
  echo "Text NOT found.";
else
  echo "Text found.";
?>

Here the result will be: Text NOT found.
Now I want to use one wildcard to omit spaces or horizontal tab like below:
<?php
if (strpos("The black\t\t\thorse", "black/*HERE THE WILDCARD*/horse") === false)
  echo "Text NOT found.";
else
  echo "Text found.";
?>

And here the idea is that the result is: Text found.
Does anyone know something about ?

A:

strpos() doesn't match patterns, if you want to match patterns you have to use preg_match() this should work for your situation.   
<?php
    if (preg_match('/black[\s]+horse/', "The black\t\t\thorse"))
      echo "Text found.";
    else
      echo "Text not found.";
?>

