Unable to read blank spaces in string - php

Question

What's wrong with this code. I want to read the number of blank spaces without using any built in function, but it wont return or read the blank spaces:
$string = "can you look into this??";
$i = 0;
$breakPoints = 0;
while ($string[$i] != '' & $string[$i + 1] != '') {
if ($string[$i] == "" || empty($string[$i])) {
die("cdsd");
$breakposition = $string[$i];
$breakPoints++;
} else {
print_r($string[$i]);
}
$i++;
}
echo($breakPoints);
It's always going into the else part and never goes into the if statement. I even tried using isset() but that also didn't work. Where am I making a mistake?

Answer 1

Just loop while the string offset isset() and check if it equals a space. No need to do anything with $i+1:
$string = "can you look into this??";
$i = 0;
$breakPoints = 0;
while (isset($string[$i])) {
if ($string[$i] == " ") {
$breakposition = $string[$i];
$breakPoints++;
} else {
print_r($string[$i]);
}
$i++;
}
echo($breakPoints);
This outputs:
canyoulookintothis??4

Answer 2

Once you've got your code right, you will always run into an string index error and you will need the isset() built in function to check before performing operations.
In other words, the i for the index will eventually point beyond the last letter of the string, this will cause a PHP error. You can use isset() to check for it and break out of the loop. Example:
$string = "can you look into this??";
$i = 0;
$breakPoints = 0;
while (isset($string[$i])) {
if ($string[$i] == " ") {
$breakPoints++;
} else {
if($string[$i] != ''){
print_r($string[$i]);
}
}
$i++;
}
echo("<br />Number of spaces: ".$breakPoints

Answer 3

spaces is not empty, it will tack size.
so use this
$string = "can you look into this??";
$i = 0;
$breakPoints = 0;
while ($string[$i] != '' & $string[$i + 1] != '') {
if ($string[$i] == " ") {
echo " ";
$breakposition = $string[$i];
$breakPoints++;
} else {
print_r($string[$i]);
}
$i++;
}
echo($breakPoints);
DEMO
or try this code,
use preg_match_all.
$matches = " ";
$numSpaces = preg_match_all('/[ ]/', $string , $matches);
or Use this::
substr_count($string , ' ');