Remove spaces and quotes outside words and leave one space between words

Question

I have a string with with quotes and spaces like' TEST 123 ' or " TEST 123 ". How can I remove spaces and quotes outside words and leave one space between words. Expected result: TEST 123

Please share with us what you've tried – j08691 Apr 22 '19 at 14:13 — j08691, Apr 22 '19 at 14:13
here is the logic for you, `trim`, `split`, `trim`, `join` – Void Spirit Apr 22 '19 at 14:13 — Void Spirit, Apr 22 '19 at 14:13

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 22 '19 at 14:13

1

remove extra spaces in string javascript

newString = string.replace(/\s+/g,''); // "thiscontainsspaces"

newString = string.replace(/\s+/g,' ').trim();

answered Apr 22 '19 at 14:13

bloo

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string contains double or single quotes, not only spaces – s_kamianiok Apr 22 '19 at 14:21
single quotes...you basically replacing anything that fits the regular expression with a blank value – bloo Apr 22 '19 at 14:22
newString = string.replace(/[ '"]+/g, ' ').trim() - it leaves spaces before word – s_kamianiok Apr 22 '19 at 14:26

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 22 '19 at 14:57

You can use this regex,

^[ '"]+|[ '"]+$|( ){2,}

And replace it wit $1 where $1 captures a single space but of instance where there are two or more spaces.

Here, ^[ '"]+ matches any space or single or double quote one or more from start of string and similarly [ '"]+$ also matches any space or single or doublequote one or more at the end of string and gets replaced with empty string where as when ( ){2,} matches, which remains to be matched in the middle of string, gets replaced with a single space as captured in group1.

Regex Demo

Sample JS demo,

var arr = ["' TEST   123  '",'"  TEST  123  "'];

for (s of arr) {
 console.log(s + " --> " + s.replace(/^[ '"]+|[ '"]+$|( ){2,}/g,'$1'));
}

Remove spaces and quotes outside words and leave one space between words

2 Answers2