Removing spaces but leaving line breaks JS or jQuery in a textarea

Question

I want to remove extra spaces at the beginning and the end of lines, but keep the line breaks, this is what I tried.

function removeSpaces(string) {
 return string.split(' ').join('');
}

<center>
 <form action="getid.php" method="post">
  <textarea name="items" id="itemNames" cols="100" rows="10" onblur="this.value=removeSpaces(this.value);"></textarea><br />
  <input type="submit" value="Get dem IDs">
  <input type="button" id="remove" value="Remove extra spaces">
 </form>
</center>

But instead, it's removing ALL the spaces, and the '\n'

I removed the Java tag since this question has nothing to do with Java. — Tim Biegeleisen, Jun 22 '16 at 01:00

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 22 '16 at 01:53

0

Your code would most definitely remove all spaces.

string.split(' ')

splits up your entire string by spaces, which includes spaces before, after and within the string itself.

My approach is as follows:

function removeSpaces(string) {
    // Remove leading spaces
    while(string.indexOf(' ') === 0) {
        string = string.substr(1);
    }
    // Remove trailing spaces
    while(string[string.length-1] === ' ') {
        string = string.substr(0, string.length-1);
    }
    return string;
}

Hope this helps! :)

answered Jun 22 '16 at 01:53

Teo Nicholas

73
6

Tried it, removes the spaces that you type, but not from the text when you copy / paste. – user1114748 Jun 22 '16 at 01:57
Could you provide an example input that you used to test? – Teo Nicholas Jun 22 '16 at 01:58
I've updated your jsfiddle : https://jsfiddle.net/Lov705o7/1/ Let me know if you have doubts on the code. – Teo Nicholas Jun 22 '16 at 02:14
Same thing here's what I'm trying http://pastebin.com/e5R1zXez edit : doesn't need to be JS, anything that works is fine tbh – user1114748 Jun 22 '16 at 02:44
I don't get what's not working for you. Tried both typing and copy pasting and it all works as expected. What did you try to copy-paste? – Teo Nicholas Jun 22 '16 at 02:53
I linked a pastebin to what I tried in my previous comment. – user1114748 Jun 22 '16 at 03:08

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 22 '16 at 03:20

0

function removeSpaces(string) {
        // Remove line breaks
        var str = string.replace(/\n/g,"");     
        return str.split(' ').join('');   
}

answered Jun 22 '16 at 03:20

Saw Saw

11

– Saw Saw Jun 22 '16 at 04:07

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 22 '16 at 05:17

0

just use .trim()

function removeSpaces(string) {
      return string.trim();
}

answered Jun 22 '16 at 05:17

Jack jdeoel

4,554
5
26
52

1

https://jsfiddle.net/2dus6L83/ Try it with http://pastebin.com/e5R1zXez Didn't work for me – user1114748 Jun 22 '16 at 05:24
yes ,jsfiddle is not worked .But put this function at the bottom of html box in jsfiddle! That will work – Jack jdeoel Jun 22 '16 at 05:33

Removing spaces but leaving line breaks JS or jQuery in a textarea

3 Answers3