PHP 8.4.2 Released!

php_strip_whitespace

(PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

php_strip_whitespaceReturn source with stripped comments and whitespace

Description

php_strip_whitespace(string $filename): string

Returns the PHP source code in filename with PHP comments and whitespace removed. This may be useful for determining the amount of actual code in your scripts compared with the amount of comments. This is similar to using php -w from the commandline.

Parameters

filename

Path to the PHP file.

Return Values

The stripped source code will be returned on success, or an empty string on failure.

Note:

This function respects the value of the short_open_tag ini directive.

Examples

Example #1 php_strip_whitespace() example

<?php
// PHP comment here

/*
* Another PHP comment
*/

echo php_strip_whitespace(__FILE__);
// Newlines are considered whitespace, and are removed too:
do_nothing();
?>

The above example will output:

<?php
 echo php_strip_whitespace(__FILE__); do_nothing(); ?>

Notice the PHP comments are gone, as are the whitespace and newline after the first echo statement.

add a note

User Contributed Notes 5 notes

up
9
gelamu at gmail dot com
16 years ago
With this function You can compress Your PHP source code.

<?php

function compress_php_src($src) {
// Whitespaces left and right from this signs can be ignored
static $IW = array(
T_CONCAT_EQUAL, // .=
T_DOUBLE_ARROW, // =>
T_BOOLEAN_AND, // &&
T_BOOLEAN_OR, // ||
T_IS_EQUAL, // ==
T_IS_NOT_EQUAL, // != or <>
T_IS_SMALLER_OR_EQUAL, // <=
T_IS_GREATER_OR_EQUAL, // >=
T_INC, // ++
T_DEC, // --
T_PLUS_EQUAL, // +=
T_MINUS_EQUAL, // -=
T_MUL_EQUAL, // *=
T_DIV_EQUAL, // /=
T_IS_IDENTICAL, // ===
T_IS_NOT_IDENTICAL, // !==
T_DOUBLE_COLON, // ::
T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM, // ::
T_OBJECT_OPERATOR, // ->
T_DOLLAR_OPEN_CURLY_BRACES, // ${
T_AND_EQUAL, // &=
T_MOD_EQUAL, // %=
T_XOR_EQUAL, // ^=
T_OR_EQUAL, // |=
T_SL, // <<
T_SR, // >>
T_SL_EQUAL, // <<=
T_SR_EQUAL, // >>=
);
if(
is_file($src)) {
if(!
$src = file_get_contents($src)) {
return
false;
}
}
$tokens = token_get_all($src);

$new = "";
$c = sizeof($tokens);
$iw = false; // ignore whitespace
$ih = false; // in HEREDOC
$ls = ""; // last sign
$ot = null; // open tag
for($i = 0; $i < $c; $i++) {
$token = $tokens[$i];
if(
is_array($token)) {
list(
$tn, $ts) = $token; // tokens: number, string, line
$tname = token_name($tn);
if(
$tn == T_INLINE_HTML) {
$new .= $ts;
$iw = false;
} else {
if(
$tn == T_OPEN_TAG) {
if(
strpos($ts, " ") || strpos($ts, "\n") || strpos($ts, "\t") || strpos($ts, "\r")) {
$ts = rtrim($ts);
}
$ts .= " ";
$new .= $ts;
$ot = T_OPEN_TAG;
$iw = true;
} elseif(
$tn == T_OPEN_TAG_WITH_ECHO) {
$new .= $ts;
$ot = T_OPEN_TAG_WITH_ECHO;
$iw = true;
} elseif(
$tn == T_CLOSE_TAG) {
if(
$ot == T_OPEN_TAG_WITH_ECHO) {
$new = rtrim($new, "; ");
} else {
$ts = " ".$ts;
}
$new .= $ts;
$ot = null;
$iw = false;
} elseif(
in_array($tn, $IW)) {
$new .= $ts;
$iw = true;
} elseif(
$tn == T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING
|| $tn == T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE)
{
if(
$ts[0] == '"') {
$ts = addcslashes($ts, "\n\t\r");
}
$new .= $ts;
$iw = true;
} elseif(
$tn == T_WHITESPACE) {
$nt = @$tokens[$i+1];
if(!
$iw && (!is_string($nt) || $nt == '$') && !in_array($nt[0], $IW)) {
$new .= " ";
}
$iw = false;
} elseif(
$tn == T_START_HEREDOC) {
$new .= "<<<S\n";
$iw = false;
$ih = true; // in HEREDOC
} elseif($tn == T_END_HEREDOC) {
$new .= "S;";
$iw = true;
$ih = false; // in HEREDOC
for($j = $i+1; $j < $c; $j++) {
if(
is_string($tokens[$j]) && $tokens[$j] == ";") {
$i = $j;
break;
} else if(
$tokens[$j][0] == T_CLOSE_TAG) {
break;
}
}
} elseif(
$tn == T_COMMENT || $tn == T_DOC_COMMENT) {
$iw = true;
} else {
if(!
$ih) {
$ts = strtolower($ts);
}
$new .= $ts;
$iw = false;
}
}
$ls = "";
} else {
if((
$token != ";" && $token != ":") || $ls != $token) {
$new .= $token;
$ls = $token;
}
$iw = true;
}
}
return
$new;
}

?>

For example:
<?php

$src
= <<<EOT
<?php
// some comment
for (
$i = 0; $i < 99; $i ++ ) {
echo "i=
${ i }\n";
/* ... */
}
/** ... */
function abc() {
return "abc";
};

abc();
?>
<h1><?= "Some text " . str_repeat("_-x-_ ", 32);;; ?></h1>
EOT;
var_dump(compress_php_src($src));
?>

And the result is:
string(125) "<?php for(=0;<99;++){echo "i=\n";}function abc(){return "abc";};abc(); ?>
<h1><?="Some text ".str_repeat("_-x-_ ",32)?></h1>"
up
6
Jouni
17 years ago
If you wish to just remove excess whitespace from a string, see the example "Strip whitespace" in the preg_replace documentation (http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php).
up
1
razvan_bc at yahoo dot com
5 years ago
i notice that on 45=75kb php file compressed using php_strip_whitespace i got slowest speed results in my apache benchmark .bat tests so doing on a normal php file 10 tests and another 10 tests on a compressed one ,calculating the math average value I got fastest results on normal php files.

well,seeing that results i think SO ,NICE,BUT IF WE COMBINE THESE "METHODS" : what if i use a partial minified method using this function ????

here is the code:
(if you run this in xampp and you are beginner you got a blank page in firefox ,but if you right click it then you click on the option "view source" you'll get the php partial stripped by comments and tabs) :

<?php
/* hi there !!!
here are the comments */
//another try

echo removecomments('index.php');

/* hi there !!!
here are the comments */
//another try
function removecomments($f){
$w=Array(';','{','}');
$ts = token_get_all(php_strip_whitespace($f));
$s='';
foreach(
$ts as $t){
if(
is_array($t)){
$s .=$t[1];
}else{
$s .=$t;
if(
in_array($t,$w) ) $s.=chr(13).chr(10);
}
}

return
$s;
}

?>
up
1
flconseil at yahoo dot fr
18 years ago
Beware that this function uses the output buffering mechanism.

If you give a 'stream wrapped' path as argument, anything echoed by the stream wrapper during this call (e.g. trace messages) won't be displayed to the screen but will be inserted in php_strip_whitespace's result.

If you execute this stripped code later, it will display the messages which should have been output during php_strip_whitespace's execution !
up
-2
TK
15 years ago
I was looking earlier for a way to strip php comments from my source files but didn't come up with much. I wrote the following function to do the trick using the tokenizer. I've tested in on an entire phpMyAdmin install and it worked fine afterward... so it should be good to go. You may also specify any number of tokens to strip such as T_WHITESPACE rather the default of T_COMMENT and T_DOC_COMMENT.

Hopefully someone finds it useful.

<?php

function strip_tokens($code) {

$args = func_get_args();
$arg_count = count($args);

// if no tokens to strip have been specified then strip comments by default
if( $arg_count === 1 ) {
$args[1] = T_COMMENT;
$args[2] = T_DOC_COMMENT;
}

// build a keyed array of tokens to strip
for( $i = 1; $i < $arg_count; ++$i )
$strip[ $args[$i] ] = true;

// set a keyed array of newline characters used to preserve line numbering
$newlines = array("\n" => true, "\r" => true);

$tokens = token_get_all($code);

reset($tokens);

$return = '';

$token = current($tokens);

while(
$token ) {

if( !
is_array($token) )

$return.= $token;

elseif( !isset(
$strip[ $token[0] ]) )

$return.= $token[1];

else {

// return only the token's newline characters to preserve line numbering
for( $i = 0, $token_length = strlen($token[1]); $i < $token_length; ++$i )
if( isset(
$newlines[ $token[1][$i] ]) )
$return.= $token[1][$i];

}

$token = next($tokens);

}
// while more tokens

return $return;

}
// function

?>
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