Replace all whitespace characters

Question

I want to replace all occurrences of white space characters (space, tab, newline) in JavaScript.
How to do so?

I tried:

str.replace(/ /gi, "X")

http://www.regular-expressions.info/ – Felix Kling Jun 28 '11 at 13:42 — Felix Kling, Jun 28 '11 at 13:42
What is "X" and why? – Muhammad Shahzad Mar 19 '16 at 20:16 — Muhammad Shahzad, Mar 19 '16 at 20:16
What about string.replace('',"X"); – Ramesh Rajendran Jan 30 '18 at 10:27 — Ramesh Rajendran, Jan 30 '18 at 10:27
its just for an example @MuhammadShahzad ;) – Ali Mert Çakar Apr 27 '21 at 12:55 — Ali Mert Çakar, Apr 27 '21 at 12:55

Alex K. · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-06T10:04:50.450

365

You want \s

Matches a single white space character, including space, tab, form feed, line feed.

Equivalent to

[ \f\n\r\t\v\u00a0\u1680\u2000-\u200a\u2028\u2029\u202f\u205f\u3000\ufeff]

in Firefox and [ \f\n\r\t\v] in IE.

str = str.replace(/\s/g, "X");

edited Sep 06 '18 at 10:04

answered Jun 28 '11 at 13:19

Alex K.

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+1 for remembering to show that the `replace` function doesn't modify `str`, so you have to assign it back. – FishBasketGordo Jun 28 '11 at 13:21
2

In a function, you can return str.replace, so you don't need to assign in that scope. – Stephan Kristyn Nov 13 '14 at 08:47
Remember for R to use `perl = TRUE`, like `gsub(pattern = "[\\s]+", ..., perl = TRUE)` – MS Berends May 28 '19 at 11:18

score 45 · Answer 2 · edited May 14 '20 at 20:25

45

We can also use this if we want to change all multiple joined blank spaces with a single character:

str.replace(/\s+/g,'X');

See it in action here: https://regex101.com/r/d9d53G/1

Explanation

/ \s+ / g

\s+ matches any whitespace character (equal to [\r\n\t\f\v ])
+ Quantifier — Matches between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)

Global pattern flags
- g modifier: global. All matches (don't return after first match)

edited May 14 '20 at 20:25

Travis J

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answered Nov 20 '15 at 09:51

Milos Stankovic

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The regex plus (+) is useful for my use case where I'm replacing whitespace type characters with an underscore (_) and if my users fat finger an extra space I really don't want to display an extra _. Thanks for this! – John Dec 07 '21 at 19:20

score 38 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 28 '11 at 13:19

38

\s is a meta character that covers all white space. You don't need to make it case-insensitive — white space doesn't have case.

str.replace(/\s/g, "X")

answered Jun 28 '11 at 13:19

Quentin

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score 8 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 28 '11 at 13:20

8

Have you tried the \s?

str.replace(/\s/g, "X");

edited Jun 28 '11 at 13:20

Headshota

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answered Jun 28 '11 at 13:19

Michael Berkowski

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score 7 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 22 '19 at 15:59

7

If you use

str.replace(/\s/g, "");

it replaces all whitespaces. For example:

var str = "hello my world";
str.replace(/\s/g, "") //the result will be "hellomyworld"

answered Mar 22 '19 at 15:59

GigiProve

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score 5 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 16 '19 at 18:16

5

Try this:

str.replace(/\s/g, "X")

edited Oct 16 '19 at 18:16

VoteCoffee

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answered Jun 28 '11 at 13:19

Headshota

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That doesn’t work. `\s\n\t` matches: any whitespace character, followed by a newline, followed by tab. – Daniel Cassidy Jun 28 '11 at 13:20

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 23 '17 at 13:26

3

Not /gi but /g

var fname = "My Family File.jpg"
fname = fname.replace(/ /g,"_");
console.log(fname);

gives

"My_Family_File.jpg"

answered Jan 23 '17 at 13:26

Dimitrios Ververidis

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score 1 · Answer 8 · edited Nov 07 '20 at 19:29

1

You could use the function trim

let str = ' Hello World ';

alert (str.trim());

All the front and back spaces around Hello World would be removed.

edited Nov 07 '20 at 19:29

Vickel

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answered Nov 07 '20 at 18:56

Anseam

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This would remove the whitespaces between "hello" and "world". Question says "all" whitespaces – Ali Mert Çakar Apr 27 '21 at 12:54

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 28 '11 at 13:43

1

Actually it has been worked but

just try this.

take the value /\s/g into a string variable like

String a = /\s/g;

str = str.replaceAll(a,"X");

answered Jun 28 '11 at 13:43

Siten

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where did you get `replaceAll` from? – Ionel Lupu Mar 18 '20 at 08:43

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Feb 06 '18 at 12:28

0

I've used the "slugify" method from underscore.string and it worked like a charm:

https://github.com/epeli/underscore.string#slugifystring--string

The cool thing is that you can really just import this method, don't need to import the entire library.

answered Feb 06 '18 at 12:28

dude

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Replace all whitespace characters

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