How to check if more than one space or beginning has space in PHP

user_9365633 0
Viewed 263
  1. Hello World
  2. Hello World
  3. hello world

    or if the very beginning has space
  4. Hello World

It works if $q has normal values but I am getting $q value from search input and so it does not work except case 1.

$q = Input::get('q');

if(preg_match("/^\s+/", $q) || preg_match("/\s{2,}/", $q)) {
        echo 'Found Spaces';    
}
preg-match php regex
5 Answers

Instead of Input::get('q'); use $q = $_GET['q'];
So your code becomes:

   $q = $_GET['q'];
    
    if(preg_match("/^\s+/", $q) || preg_match("/\s{2,}/", $q)) {
            echo 'Found Spaces';    
    }
user_164859170 
if(preg_match("/^\s+/", $q) || preg_match("/\s{2,}/", $q))
    {
       
    }
user_129302470 
/\s+/g
  • \s to match space.
  • + to said at least one.
  • g globally tag, all matches.
user_109471390

You can use a single call to preg_match with an alternation | to check for both scenario's.

As \s can also match a newline, you can use \h to match a horizontal whitespace char.

^\h|\h\h

Regex demo

$q = Input::get('q');

if(preg_match("/^\h|\h\h/", $q) ) {
    echo 'Found Spaces';
}
user_54249880

Have you tried using PHP trim() function? Use trim() to remove redundant whitespaces, then apply more advanced filter or whatever you name it. In case you want a boolean value, just check if the original string is different from trimmed string. Document: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.trim.php

user_124535620
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