Are there any performance differences between using \s+ and \s{2,} in regular expressions for whitespace removal in PHP?

Using \s+ in a regular expression matches one or more whitespace characters, while \s{2,} matches two or more whitespace characters specifically. In terms of performance, using \s+ may be slightly faster as it only needs to check for one or more whitespace characters, while \s{2,} requires checking for at least two whitespace characters. However, the performance difference is likely negligible in most cases. 

// Using \s+ for whitespace removal
$string = "Hello    World";
$cleaned_string = preg_replace('/\s+/', '', $string);
echo $cleaned_string; // Output: HelloWorld

Keywords

PHP regular expressions whitespace removal performance differences \s+ vs \s{2 }

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