White space in string

[peteraub]

I want to be able to get rid of white space in middle of string. Using trim() and strtok() functions I have had some success. The problem is that on a form I want to compare phone numbers to those shown on database. This works fine as long as the user inserts phone number exactly as shown in database. If the user inserts an extra space in middle of number on form it doesn't show up as same number. Can anyone help me with this.

Thanks heaps
Peter

[bodzan]

I'm not sure whether it is going to work but you give it a try:

$var = eregi_replace("([ ]+)","",$var);

The thing eregi_replace does is to change the thig in first parameter (in this case the white space) with the thing in second parameter (in this case "" i.e. nothing i.e. it should delete all the white spaces within the string if I'm not mistaken) in string who's name is the third parameter ($var in this case)

Hope it helps...

[tbone-tw]

Or for a more lightweight version of the above:

$var = str_replace(" ", "", $var);

(that's quote - space - quote as the first parameter, and then quote - quote as the second parameter).

str_replace is faster than either ereg_replace or preg_replace for simple replacements like this. But you probably won't notice a difference in speed unless you're processing a large amount of strings (which you're probably not, unless your form is crazy big!)

This might also be a little easier for you to read when you maintain your code in the future.

[peteraub]

Thanks guys,
They both work fine. 🙂

[peteraub]

Could you help me again and show me how I would also remove other characters and replace them with nothing. The other characters I want to remove are ( and ). (start and close braces). I couldnt work out the proper syntax to add other characters to the expression as well.

thanks

[drawmack]

$var = ereg_replace("[([\t ]+","",$var);