php Replacing multiple spaces with a single space [duplicate]

I'm trying to replace multiple spaces with a single space. When I use ereg_replace, I get an error about it being deprecated.

ereg_replace("[ \t\n\r]+", " ", $string);

Is there an identical replacement for it. I need to replace multiple " " white spaces and multiple nbsp white spaces with a single white space.

Solution 1:

Use preg_replace() and instead of [ \t\n\r] use \s:

$output = preg_replace('!\s+!', ' ', $input);

From Regular Expression Basic Syntax Reference:

\d, \w and \s

Shorthand character classes matching digits, word characters (letters, digits, and underscores), and whitespace (spaces, tabs, and line breaks). Can be used inside and outside character classes.

Solution 2:

$output = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ',$input);

\s is shorthand for [ \t\n\r]. Multiple spaces will be replaced with single space.