strpos returns true when using clearly different strings - php

Question

I'm taking data from an excel using phpexcel, like this:
$number = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getCell('A3')->getValue();
number is clearly a number, okay? so, after that I want to know if $number exists on the word $elem:
if(strpos($elem,$number) !== false) //está?
{
$answer = true;
}
the problem is that when I test it with this data, the $answer is true, and it shouldn't be:
$number = 11001456
$elem = '10001033.jpg'
So... what's wrong here?
PD: I'm going to post the entire code so you can see it, If I try to do (string)$number then the code crashes, it exceeds time execution.... (using cakephp)
The important thing is located at the function SearchPhoto... you will see the strpos there...
public function admin_load() //esto sirve para cargar un excel...
{
if($this->request->is('post'))
{
$data = $this->request->data;
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', TRUE);
ini_set('display_startup_errors', TRUE);
define('EOL',(PHP_SAPI == 'cli') ? PHP_EOL : '<br />');
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');
/** Include PHPExcel_IOFactory */
require_once WWW_ROOT . '/excelWorker/Classes/PHPExcel/IOFactory.php';
echo date('H:i:s') , " Load from Excel2007 file" , EOL;
$callStartTime = microtime(true);
$objPHPExcel = PHPExcel_IOFactory::load($data['People']['excel']['tmp_name']);
$dir = WWW_ROOT . "img/photos";
$files = scandir($dir);
$batchPeople = array();
for($i = 2; $i <= $data['People']['num']; $i++)
{
$batchPeople[$i-2]['People']['fullname'] = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getCell('B'.$i)->getValue();
$batchPeople[$i-2]['People']['floor'] = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getCell('C'.$i)->getValue();
$batchPeople[$i-2]['People']['country'] = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getCell('D'.$i)->getValue();
$batchPeople[$i-2]['People']['day'] = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getCell('F'.$i)->getValue();
$batchPeople[$i-2]['People']['month'] = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getCell('G'.$i)->getValue();
$batchPeople[$i-2]['People']['photo'] = $this->SearchPhoto($objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->getCell('A'.$i)->getValue(),$files);
}
// $this->People->saveMany($batchPeople);
}
}
function SearchPhoto($number, $array)
{
$answer = '';
$getOut = false;
foreach($array as $elem)
{
if(strcmp($elem,'.') != 0 && strcmp($elem,'..') != 0)
if(strpos($elem,$number) !== false) //está?
{
echo 'coinciden--> '. $number . ',' . $elem;
echo '<br>';
$answer = $elem;
$getOut = true;
}
if($getOut)
break;
}
return $answer;
}

Answer 1

This should work for you:
(BTW: You use $number in the code and not $num)
<?php
$num = 11001456;
$elem = "10001033.jpg";
if(strpos($elem, (string)$num) !== false) {
echo "yes";
}
?>
For more information about strpos() look into the manual: http://php.net/manual/en/function.strpos.php
And a quote from there:
needle:
If needle is not a string, it is converted to an integer and applied as the ordinal value of a character.
echo chr($number); // p
echo strpos($elem, 'p'); // 10 (which is p in $elem)

Answer 2

I ended up using preg_match to solve my problem... I still don't know what's wrong with using strpos... because it works on all the sites I made expect this particular case!
In case anyone wondering what's the exact solution:
$text = $B;
$pattern = '/'.$A.'/';
preg_match($pattern,$text,$matches);
if(isset($matches[0]))
$answer = true;