ctype_space()

ctype_space() — Check for whitespace character(s).

Built-in function of PHP 8.5. The manual lists it as available in PHP 4 >= 4.0.4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8. This page is the reference card: signature, parameters and return value, plus the changelog and the example the manual provides.

What it does

Checks if all of the characters in the provided string, text, creates whitespace.

Signature

ctype_space(mixed $text): bool

Parameters

Parameter	Type	What it takes
$text	mixed	The tested string. Note: If an int between -128 and 255 inclusive is provided, it is interpreted as the ASCII value of a single character (negative values have 256 added in order to allow characters in the Extended ASCII range). Any other integer is interpreted as a string containing the decimal digits of the integer. Warning As of PHP 8.1.0, passing a non-string argument is deprecated. In the future, the argument ...

Return value

Returns true if every character in text creates some sort of white space, false otherwise. Besides the blank character this also includes tab, vertical tab, line feed, carriage return and form feed characters. When called with an empty string the result will always be false.

Example

A runnable snippet:

$strings = array( 'string1' => "\n\r\t", 'string2' => "\narf12", 'string3' => '\n\r\t' // note the single quotes ); foreach ($strings as $name => $testcase) { if (ctype_space($testcase)) { echo "The string '$name' consists of whitespace characters only.\n"; } else { echo "The string '$name' contains non-whitespace characters.\n"; } }

Output:

The string 'string1' consists of whitespace characters only. The string 'string2' contains non-whitespace characters. The string 'string3' contains non-whitespace characters.