[SOLVED] How would you trim excess spaces inside a string?

[limitphp]

I know that trim will remove any spaces before or after a string, but what if I wanted to remove any excess spaces inside a string?

 

For example, if I had $value = "a    b    c";

there are more than 1 spaces between the letters. 

Is there a best practice method to replace more than one space between characters with just one space?

 

Also, for mod rewrites safe urls, I know you replace spaces with dashes, what about periods and underscores, are those characters safe for a url?

 

thanks

 

thanks

[milesap]

ereg_replace(" ", "", $string);

 

that should work

[Prismatic]

ereg_replace(" ", "", $string);

 

that should work

 

No, that removes all spaces.

 

use this

<?

$string = "this      has  lots  of    extra      spaces";

echo preg_replace('/\\s{2,}/',' ',$string);

?>

[limitphp]

ereg_replace(" ", "", $string);

 

that should work

 

No, that removes all spaces.

 

use this

<?

$string = "this      has  lots  of    extra      spaces";

echo preg_replace('/\\s{2,}/',' ',$string);

?>

 

that worked perfectly....thank you.

 

I know dashes are used for mod rewrite safe names

ex)

mysite.com/artists/artist-name/

 

but what about underscores and periods?

 

is there a safe list of characters somewhere?

thanks

[premiso]

but what about underscores and periods?

 

is there a safe list of characters somewhere?

thanks

 

Periods I would suggest against as they usually distinguish a file. Underscores are fine.

 

As far as a safe list, google "SEO best practices". To me a - is better than an _ but that is just my preference.

[limitphp]

but what about underscores and periods?

 

is there a safe list of characters somewhere?

thanks

 

Periods I would suggest against as they usually distinguish a file. Underscores are fine.

 

As far as a safe list, google "SEO best practices". To me a - is better than an _ but that is just my preference.

 

Well, the problem is, eventually, people will be able to view people's profile on my site....

ex)

mysite.com/users/username/

 

and right now i allow usernames to contain periods, underscores and dashes.

If those were safe characters, then I want to just use their username as the value to put in the link.

 

so technically, it could be:

ex)

mysite.com/users/my-long.user_name/

 

 

[premiso]

Underscores/dashes are fine. The periods are probably fine too, I was just stating an obvious point, file names contain periods then the extension, which most search engines can interpret as so and rank you lower.

 

I would disallow the use of periods, but that is me. A username does not need periods, a "display name" can have periods/whatever it wants. It is better, if you ask me, to keep usernames simple and straight forward, Aplhanumeric.

[limitphp]

Underscores/dashes are fine. The periods are probably fine too, I was just stating an obvious point, file names contain periods then the extension, which most search engines can interpret as so and rank you lower.

 

I would disallow the use of periods, but that is me. A username does not need periods, a "display name" can have periods/whatever it wants. It is better, if you ask me, to keep usernames simple and straight forward, Aplhanumeric.

Ok, I think that's what I'll do.  I'll let them use dashes only in usernames, no periods or underscores.

 

thanks for the advice.