There's filter_var() as well and it's the native function which checks range. It doesn't give exactly what you want (never returns true), but with "cheat" we can change it.

I don't think it's a good code as for readability, but I show it's as a possibility:

return (filter_var($someNumber, FILTER_VALIDATE_INT, ['options' => ['min_range' => $min, 'max_range' => $max]]) !== false)

Just fill $someNumber , $min and $max . filter_var with that filter returns either boolean false when number is outside range or the number itself when it's within range. The expression ( !== false ) makes function return true, when number is within range.

If you want to shorten it somehow, remember about type casting. If you would use != it would be false for number 0 within range -5; +5 (while it should be true). The same would happen if you would use type casting ( (bool) ).

// EXAMPLE OF WRONG USE, GIVES WRONG RESULTS WITH "0" (bool)filter_var($someNumber, FILTER_VALIDATE_INT, ['options' => ['min_range' => $min, 'max_range' => $max]]) if (filter_var($someNumber, FILTER_VALIDATE_INT, ['options' => ['min_range' => $min, 'max_range' => $max]])) ...

Imagine that (from other answer):

if(in_array($userScore, range(-5, 5))) echo 'your score is correct'; else echo 'incorrect, enter again';

If user would write empty value ( $userScore = '' ) it would be correct, as in_array is set here for default, non-strict more and that means that range creates 0 as well, and '' == 0 (non-strict), but '' !== 0 (if you would use strict mode). It's easy to miss such things and that's why I wrote a bit about that. I was learned that strict operators are default, and programmer could use non-strict only in special cases. I think it's a good lesson. Most examples here would fail in some cases because non-strict checking.