normalize_whitespace() │ WP 2.7.0

Normalize EOL characters and strip duplicate whitespace.

1 time — 0.000123 sec (fast) | 50000 times — 0.04 sec (speed of light)

No Hooks.

Return

String. The normalized string.

Usage

normalize_whitespace( $str );
$str(string) (required)
The string to normalize.

Examples

0

#1 Normalizing a string with spaces 

$string = 'hello       world ';
// 18 characters with a space at the end

string = normalize_whitespace( $string ); //> 'hello world'
// 11 characters without a space at the end
0

#2 Line Comparison

Suppose we have saved the content entered into a text field and we want to periodically compare whether it is different from the current content in the field.

$autosave_is_different = false;
if( normalize_whitespace( $current_content ) !== normalize_whitespace( $saved_content ) ) {
	$autosave_is_different = true;
}

Changelog

Since 2.7.0 Introduced.

normalize_whitespace() code WP 6.5.2

wp-includes/formatting.php 
function normalize_whitespace( $str ) {
	$str = trim( $str );
	$str = str_replace( "\r", "\n", $str );
	$str = preg_replace( array( '/\n+/', '/[ \t]+/' ), array( "\n", ' ' ), $str );
	return $str;
}

Formatting