What is the difference between space and whitespace in PHP?
I saw on different places that to strip out all the spaces use str_replace() and use preg_replace() for whitespace.
Here is a reference: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2109339/4003463
Asked
Active
Viewed 1.1k times
12
Mickaël Leger
- 3,426
- 2
- 17
- 36
Kayani
- 369
- 1
- 4
- 16
-
3What does that mean? Why should there be any difference? – Nico Haase Jun 21 '18 at 07:33
-
Whitespace is a programming language or just a space .. I guess in your question you want to know that, but there is not any difference – Ende Jun 21 '18 at 07:36
-
2@Ende Thankyou, Space is a normal space between words, while whitespace is any kind of space in text: regular space, new line, tab, etc – Kayani Jun 21 '18 at 08:19
-
4I do not understand the downvotes. This is a good question. – Michael Haddad Sep 07 '18 at 14:59
-
@Sipo indeed. I hope it's because the downvoters consider it fundamental. – giannis christofakis Jan 30 '19 at 13:43
1 Answers
15
In the added context to your question, a space is ascii 32 (that is, what you get when you press the spacebar).
A whitespace is any character that renders as a space, that is:
- A space character
- A tab character
- A carriage return character
- A new line character
- A vertical tab character
- A form feed character
Federico klez Culloca
- 26,308
- 17
- 56
- 95
-
1"Space" can be just `\u0020` as you say, but it can also be non-breaking space (`\u00A0`) or full-width space (`\u3000`), or one of other unicode codepoints that look like (and are used as) space. I agree that in context of `str_replace`, they probably just meant the "normal" space (`\u0020`), given that that function can't replace several different things in one run (unlike `preg_replace`). – Amadan Jun 21 '18 at 07:48
-
-
@DawnSong what do you mean by "any space"? How would it be different from the concept of whitespace? – Federico klez Culloca Jul 27 '20 at 12:33
-
@FedericoklezCulloca There is "white space", and no "black space". There might be some more inclusive word. – DawnSong Jul 28 '20 at 06:42
-
Don't charge words with meanings they do not have. "White space" is because we usually write on white paper and there is a literal "white space" where there are no words. It's not charged, it doesn't have a positive meaning as opposed to "black space", which is not even a thing. Let's not make this very important fight against racism ridiculous to the point where people just mock it. – Federico klez Culloca Jul 28 '20 at 06:53