What is the difference between space and whitespace in PHP?

Question

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

Answer 1

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