What is the regular expression to replace white space with a specified character?

Question

I have searched lot of questions and answers but, I just got lengthy and complicated expressions. Now I want to replace all white spaces from the string. I know it can be done by regex. but, I don't have enough knowledge about regex and how to replace all white space with ','(comma) using it. I have checked some links but, I didn't get exact answer. If you have any link of posted question or answer like this. please suggest me.

My string is defined as below.

string sText = "BankMaster      AccountNo              decimal      To   varchar";

and the result should be return as below.

"BankMaster,AccountNo,decimal,To,varchar"

Full Code:

string sItems = Clipboard.GetText();
string[] lines = sItems.Split('\n');
for (int iLine =0; iLine<lines.Length;iLine++)
{
    string sLine = lines[iLine];
    sLine = //CODE TO REPLACE WHITE SPACE WITH ','
    string[] cells = sLine.Split(',');

    grdGrid.Rows.Add(iLine, cells[0], cells[1], cells[2], cells[4]);
}

Additional Details

I have more than 16000 line in a list. and all lines are same formatted like given example above. So, I am going to use regular expression instead of loop and recursive function call. If you have any other way to make this process more faster than regex then please suggest me.

Can I ask why do you want to do this using regex? It's far more efficient to use a single loop. — korhner, Mar 04 '14 at 07:31
@korhner I have more than 16000 lines in the list and i have to convert all that lines also. — Shell, Mar 04 '14 at 08:15
@korhner I don't know which method is faster. if you have any suggestion to do this in minimum time then it would be appreciated. — Shell, Mar 04 '14 at 08:35

score 13 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 04 '14 at 07:37

13

string result = Regex.Replace(sText, "\\s+", ",");

\s+ stands for "capture all sequential whitespaces of any kind".

By whitespace regex engine undeerstands space (), tab (\t), newline (\n) and caret return (\r)

answered Mar 04 '14 at 07:37

J0HN

26,063
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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 04 '14 at 07:37

1

string a = "Some    text  with   spaces";
Regex rgx = new Regex("\\s+");
string result = rgx.Replace(a, ",");

Console.WriteLine(result);

The code above will replace all the white spaces with ',' character

answered Mar 04 '14 at 07:37

Rami

7,162
1
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Oscar Bralo · Answer 3 · 2014-03-04T08:28:40.413

0

Try this:

sText = Regex.Replace(sText , @"\s+", ",");

edited Mar 04 '14 at 08:28

answered Mar 04 '14 at 07:32

Oscar Bralo

1,912
13
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1

Now it doesn't compile – J0HN Mar 04 '14 at 07:37
I forgot the @! hehehe – Oscar Bralo Mar 04 '14 at 07:38
1

And here's the question to you: did you rush to post first answer so much so you didn't even check it? – J0HN Mar 04 '14 at 07:39
I checked my first answer! " ", ",", then changed by \s and I forgot the scape \ hehe, then you corrected me ;) Thanks! ANd yes, you are right! – Oscar Bralo Mar 04 '14 at 07:40
1

@OscarBralo And what would be the output? – Shell Mar 04 '14 at 08:26
@Nimesh you are right Nimesh! Now, finally fixed.. Thanks for help fixing! – Oscar Bralo Mar 04 '14 at 08:29

Sudhakar Tillapudi · Answer 4 · 2014-03-04T07:45:45.917

Try This:

string str = "BankMaster      AccountNo              decimal      To   varchar";
StringBuilder temp = new StringBuilder();
str=str.Trim(); //trim before logic to avoid any trailing/leading whitespaces.
foreach(char ch in str)
{
          if (ch == ' ' && temp[temp.Length-1] != ',')
            {
                temp.Append(",");
            }
            else if (ch != ' ')
            {
                temp.Append(ch.ToString());
            }
}
  Console.WriteLine(temp);

Output:

BankMaster,AccountNo,decimal,To,varchar

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:30

0

there are lot's of samples to do that by regular expressions:

Flex: replace all spaces with comma,

Regex replace all commas with value,

http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=896548,

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20971008-sed-help-whitespace-to-comma

edited May 23 '17 at 10:30

Community

1
1

answered Mar 04 '14 at 07:44

Ehsan

816
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What is the regular expression to replace white space with a specified character?

5 Answers5