Removing blank output before opening tag to prevent "quirks" mode

Question

I have a html template as a php string. To prevent output, all blank characters and line breaks before the html opening or doctype definition should be removed. What is the simplest and fastest way to do this with PHP?

Answer 1

If I interpret your question as simply, "How do I remove whitespace from the beginning of a string", the answer is simply:

$str = trim($str);

Answer 2

If you are using some kind of MVC framework, you would find the output method in the view and trim the string.