PHP str_replace replace spaces with underscores

Try this instead:

$journalName = preg_replace('/\s+/', '_', $journalName);

Explanation: you are most likely seeing whitespace, not just plain spaces (there is a difference).

I'll suggest that you use this as it will check for both single and multiple occurrence of white space (as suggested by Lucas Green).

$journalName = preg_replace('/\s+/', '_', $journalName);

instead of:

$journalName = str_replace(' ', '_', $journalName);