Check if string contains 2 spaces (but not one after the other)

Question

How would You check if string contains exactly 2 non-adjacent spaces in PHP ?

f.e. 'John Wayne Washington' -> TRUE (2 spaces in string); 'John Wayne' -> FALSE (1 space)

Any regex pattern with explanation ?

http://php.net/manual/en/function.substr-count.php. Also - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1034017/how-to-count-space-in-a-text-statement-in-php — Wiktor Stribiżew, Jul 17 '16 at 11:47
Anyway, the regex is `^[^ ]* [^ ]+ [^ ]*$` and it should be computationally similar to the function suggested by @WiktorStribiżew (edited: the OP's searching for 2 not-adjacent spaces) — logi-kal, Jul 17 '16 at 11:50
Ah, the title contains the details in parentheses: *(but not one after the other)*. Then right, `str_count` will not help. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Jul 17 '16 at 11:52

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 17 '16 at 11:52

2

$string = "Bush      sucks       big    time";
$counter = count_chars($string,0);
echo $counter[32] . " spaces in the phrase.";

answered Jul 17 '16 at 11:52

suman das

1

Please provide an explanation alongside a code chunk so that others with a similar question can easily understand what is happening. As it stands now, this question is in a low quality posts review queue. – coatless Jul 17 '16 at 22:44

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 17 '16 at 12:12

0

Use this pattern:

^[^ ]* [^ ]+ [^ ]*$

It matches a string with exactly 2 non-adjacent spaces.

answered Jul 17 '16 at 12:12

logi-kal

2 Answers2