Truncate whitespace

[boen_robot]

You all know that HTML truncates whitespace, that is, it turns

some   text

into just

some text

I was wondering, is there an easy way to duplicate this functionality in PHP? That is, a function that would take a certain string, and truncate all spaces inside it, returning the truncated string.I suppose it could be done with regular expression replacements, but I'd like to avoid that if possible (truncation is not as important for what I need this for, so using this would be overly complex and maybe not very efficient too).

[Synook]

What's wrong with regular expressions?

function truncate_spaces($string) {	return preg_replace("/\s{2,}/", " ", $string);}

Can't think of any other way...

[justsomeguy]

The only other way would be to go through the string character-by-character and rebuild it. The regex would be more efficient then that.

[boen_robot]

I was really hoping PHP would include a function for that which I have overlooked. Oh well... regex replacement it is.

[jhecht]

do you mean like if you have a this string (the words [space] is used to indicate a single space)

bob[space][space]is[space][space][space][space][space]cool[space]and[space]fun

to turn it into this

bob[space]is[space]cool[space]and[space]fun

?Because if so i believe the trim() function does this... (IF I'm not mistaken, never really use trim for anything)also, you could just use(keep in mind i've never tried this, so if it doesn't work, don't yell at me).

$str = "	   multiple	spaces";while(strpos($str,"  ")){ $str = str_replace("  "," ",$str);}

And as said, whats wrong with regular expressions?

[zppblood]

To JhechtFrom php.net on the trim():"Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning and end of a string"The str_replace function would not work as to what boen_robot with the following examples:The[space][space][space]dog[space]crossed[space]the[space][space]street.would turn toThe[space][space]dog[space]crossed[space]the[space]street.Look at the spaces after the word "The".The[space][space][space][space]dog[space]crossed[space]the[space]street.Again after the word "The" you would have two spaces instead of one.EDIT: Didn't think see the while loop, and do see how you are doing it.

[justsomeguy]

This is the alternative to the regular expression:

$words = explode(' ', $str);for ($i = count($words) - 1; $i >= 0; $i--){  $words[$i] = trim($words[$i]);  if ($words[$i] == '')	unset($words[$i]);}$str = implode(' ', $words);

Obviously the regex is going to be quicker and more efficient.

[boen_robot]

I was already persuaded by the time I read "The only other way " ("only" being the word that persuaded me). But thanks for the alternative(s?) anyway.