Return spaces at start of string

ralphiooo · Feb 15, 2006

Hi, How do I strip the text part of a string leaving me just the spaces before the text

ie say I have

$string = "_____text" it would return "_____"
$string 2 = "__________text" would return "__________"

where _ = a space so you can see

Appreciate the help. Thanks

sleipnir214 · Feb 15, 2006

You could, I suppose, use a regular expression:

Code:

<?php
$string = '     text';

$string = preg_replace ('/^( +).*$/', '$1', $string);

print '<html><body><pre>';
print '"' . $string . '"';
print '</pre></body></html>';
?>

The above code will return the entire string, though, if there are no characters at the beginning of the string.

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jpadie · Feb 16, 2006

this might be quicker than a regex.
function rtnspaces($string)
{
return substr($string,0,(strlen($string) - strlen(ltrim($string))));
}

ralphiooo · Feb 16, 2006

Hi, sorry to be a pain but I did not explained my problem too clearly. I need to return all the spaces including the html entity   to the left of the string. Appreciate if you could help once more. Cheers

sleipnir214 · Feb 16, 2006

What html entity?

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jpadie · Feb 16, 2006

at a guess - you could use sleipnir214's method as follows:

Code:

$string = '     text';
$string = html_entity_decode($string);
$string = preg_replace ('/^( +).*$/', '$1', $string);

print '<html><body><pre>';
print '"' . $string . '"';
print '</pre></body></html>';
?>

or mine

Code:

function rtnspaces($string)
{
    $string = html_entity_decode($string);
    return substr($string,0,(strlen($string) - strlen(ltrim($string))));
}

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Return spaces at start of string

ralphiooo

Programmer

sleipnir214

Programmer

jpadie

Technical User

ralphiooo

Programmer

sleipnir214

Programmer

jpadie

Technical User

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