Question

in php i need to compare 2 strings.

str1="this is             a       string"

str2=" this is a string  "

I want to consider str1 and str2 to be the same string.

The way I can think is:

trim the strings first. extract the words of each string first, compare the words and then get the result.

Any better way i.e. bulit-in function or something else to make the comparison?

Answer 1

Just use preg_replace() function and trim() function. The following:

<?php
$str1 = "this is             a       string";
$str2 = " this is a string  ";
$str1 = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', trim($str1));
$str2 = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', trim($str2));
var_dump($str1, $str2);

will output two identical strings:

string(16) "this is a string"
string(16) "this is a string"

See this codepad as a proof.