[FIXED] why do arrows < break this regex?

Issue

$str = "for(var i = 0; i < aLinks.length; i++) {"; 

preg_replace( "!\s+!", "", $str  );

output: for(vari=0;i

My desired output is

for(var i=0;iaLinks.length;i++){

if I remove the arrow like this $str = "for(var i = 0; i (no arrow here) aLinks.length; i++) {"; then I get the desired output.

Why does the back arrow break the regex?

What I want the regex to do is remove all tabs line breaks and spaces and nothing else. the strings may have operators like < or > etc and I want these to be ignored.

Solution

This was a stupid school boy error. I was viewing the output in a browser so it was interpreting the "<" as a tag and everything after that was invisible. Simply viewing the source in the browser showed it was actually working exactly as expected.

Answered By - Feels Unique

Answer Checked By - Clifford M. (PHPFixing Volunteer)