How to remove whitespace in PHP response?

Question

I have a php call I am doing, and the response is used in a foreach function to fill a table.

My table cell contains a huge amount of whitespace, which looks like it is coming from the php response.

Below is an extract and when you take a look in the TD elements, you can see the extra space.

Not sure whats causing this, or how to remove it, maybe a trim?

<div class="container-fluid" style="margin-top:2em;">
            <div class="row">
                <div class="col-lg-12" style="background: none;">
                    <h4>Test Drives</h4>
                                        <table class="table table-fixed table-sm table-hover" style="height: 100px; background:pink;">
                        <thead>
                            <tr>
                            <th>
                                Value
                            </th>
                            <th>
                                Date Submitted
                            </th>
                            <th>
                                 User submitted
                            </th>
                                <th>
                                 Market
                            </th>
                                <th>
                                 Notes
                            </th>
                                <th>
                                 Last Update by
                            </th>
                            </tr>
                        </thead>
                        <tbody>
                                                    <tr>
                                <td>
                                    2                                </td>
                                <td>
                                    2017-03-08                                </td>
                                <td>
                                    ADMIN                                </td>
                                <td>
                                    DE                                </td>
                                <td>
                                    This is a test                                </td>
                                <td>
                                    ADMIN                                </td>
                            </tr>
                                                    </tbody>
                    </table>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>

Below is the PHP code within my html:

<div class="container-fluid" style="margin-top:2em;">
            <div class="row">
                <div class="col-lg-12" style="background: none;">
                    <h4>Test Drives</h4>
                    <?php include 'campaign_detail.inc.php'; ?>
                    <table class="table table-fixed table-sm table-hover" style="height: 100px; background:pink;">
                        <thead>
                            <tr>
                            <th>
                                Value
                            </th>
                            <th>
                                Date Submitted
                            </th>
                            <th>
                                 User submitted
                            </th>
                                <th>
                                 Market
                            </th>
                                <th>
                                 Notes
                            </th>
                                <th>
                                 Last Update by
                            </th>
                            </tr>
                        </thead>
                        <tbody>
                        <?php foreach($testdrives as $tdrrow) {?>
                            <tr>
                                <td>
                                <?php echo "$tdrrow[CAMPAIGN_DATA_VALUE]";?>
                                </td>
                                <td>
                                <?php echo "$tdrrow[CAMPAIGN_DATA_DATE_CREATED]";?>
                                </td>
                                <td>
                                <?php echo "$tdrrow[CAMPAIGN_DATA_USER_CREATED]";?>
                                </td>
                                <td>
                                <?php echo "$tdrrow[CAMPAIGN_DATA_MARKET]";?>
                                </td>
                                <td>
                                <?php echo "$tdrrow[CAMPAIGN_DATA_NOTES]";?>
                                </td>
                                <td>
                                <?php echo "$tdrrow[CAMPAIGN_DATA_USER_UPDATED]";?>
                                </td>
                            </tr>
                            <?php } ?>
                        </tbody>
                    </table>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>

The issue is that you have put a lot of whitespace in front of the PHP echo, and then again on the next line before the closing tag — Alister Bulman, Mar 08 '17 at 13:08
You will find it very difficult to make the output HTML tidy without mangling your source PHP code, so in all honesty, you shouldn't stop to worry about this. The output HTML is not your source code, so it doesn't need to be tidy; you will never need to edit it, so it's irrelevant. Your source code is the PHP code. Having that code as tidy as possible will make it easier to maintain. — Simba, Mar 08 '17 at 13:09

Alive to die - Anant · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-08T13:19:51.210

5

You can use trim() like below:-

<?php echo trim("$tdrrow[CAMPAIGN_DATA_VALUE]");?>

And so on for others

Also remove extra spaces created by you for indentation

Note:-

@Fred-ii- valuable comment:-

Sidenote: If you also want clean HTML which is good practice when it comes to having to probably debug from source code, is to add \n's.

I.e. : <?php echo trim("$tdrrow[CAMPAIGN_DATA_VALUE]") . "\n";?> - Otherwise, you may get clumps of code in one line.

edited Mar 08 '17 at 13:19

answered Mar 08 '17 at 13:01

Alive to die - Anant

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It is .php, but the initial problem was the extra indentation i have used. – Chris Mar 08 '17 at 13:07
@Chris yes i checked it and added in my answer – Alive to die - Anant Mar 08 '17 at 13:09
1

@Chris Sidenote: If you also want clean HTML which is good practice when it comes to having to probably debug from source code, is to add `\n`'s. I.e.: `` - Otherwise, you may get clumps of code in one line. – Funk Forty Niner Mar 08 '17 at 13:14
@AlivetoDie If you wish to add it under your original post, sure... why not. ;-) – Funk Forty Niner Mar 08 '17 at 13:17

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 08 '17 at 13:02

3

Your spaces are created by indentation in HTML.

Use <td><?= trim($tdrrow[CAMPAIGN_DATA_VALUE]);?></td>

answered Mar 08 '17 at 13:02

Justinas

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The PHP short-echo - "= " is enabled from PHP 5.4 and later – Alister Bulman Mar 08 '17 at 13:07
That is basically the problem. Due to some coding steps i did, i had added inappropriate extra line breaks. – Chris Mar 08 '17 at 13:09

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

1

Copied from https://stackoverflow.com/a/2109339/7403455

For just spaces, use str_replace:

$string = str_replace(' ', '', $string);

For all whitespace, use preg_replace:

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

As simba suggests also clean up the PHP that generates this HTML output as well.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

Community

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answered Mar 08 '17 at 13:22

Dub Class Dubclass

31
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How to remove whitespace in PHP response?

3 Answers3