replace characters that are hidden in text
This solution will work, I tested it:
$string = htmlentities($content, null, 'utf-8');
$content = str_replace(" ", "", $string);
$content = html_entity_decode($content);
Not tested, but if you use something like:
$string = preg_replace("/\s/",'',$string);
That should remove all spaces.
UPDATE
To remove all spaces and
references, use something like:
$string = preg_replace("/\s| /",'',$string);
UPDATE 2
Try this:
$string = html_entity_decode($string);
$string = preg_replace("/\s/",'',$string);
echo $string;
Forgot to say, reconvert the html entities so add this after the replacement:
htmlentities($string);
All solutions above kind of work, until one starts to work with German language where there are such letters:
ä ä
and othere simial ones. I use the following code:
$string = preg_replace ( "!\s++!u", ' ', $string );
More details here: PCRE(3) Library Functions Manual