Remove spaces in a Javascript variable

Question

I'm using AJAX to retrieve data from MYSQL database through PHP.

However, if there is no result found, the variable still has two spaces. I found the problem using alert(data.length);. The result is 2, which means there are two spaces.

How can I remove these spaces so that if there is no result, I could display a message using if(data == ''){}?

Thank you!

possible duplicate of [Remove characters from a string](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4846978/remove-characters-from-a-string) and [How remove blank characters from a string in javascript?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3893625/how-remove-blank-characters-from-a-string-in-javascript). — Felix Kling, Nov 28 '12 at 20:29
If I were you, I would [`trim`](http://php.net/trim) the response on the PHP end. — bfavaretto, Nov 28 '12 at 20:33
@bfavaretto - I tried to do so, but I don't know, query passes through if($query) even query is empty — Naveen Gamage, Nov 28 '12 at 20:42

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:20

9

This is called string trimming. And here is one option for that in pure JavaScript:

var len = data.replace(/\s/g, "").length;

However, in modern browsers there is a string trim() function for that:

var len = data.trim().length;

answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:20

VisioN

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but I don't want to remove spaces if there are some results, then spaces in those results will be also removed..I can try, if data.length == 2 then i can trim it.. thank you for ur answer... – Naveen Gamage Nov 28 '12 at 20:36

Bruno · Answer 2 · 2018-04-26T05:32:12.937

3

I can't understand why you have those two empty spaces in the first place. If it's a suitable option for you, I would try to remove those spaces at the origin, so from the server response.

If that's not possible you could use String.prototype.trim to remove leading/trailing white space. This would allow you to write your check as below

if (data.trim().length === 0) {
  ...
}

edited Apr 26 '18 at 05:32

answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:20

Bruno

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:20

1

var str = "lots of whitespace";
str.replace(/\s+/g, ''); // 'lotsofwhitespace'

answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:20

lostsource

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score 1 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

1

See this post where the topic is covered deeply, if you use jQuery, you can use $.trim() which is built-in.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

Community

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answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:21

David Müller

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:22

1

if your variable is data then try this

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

and assign it to other variable if you want

data2 = data.replace(/\s+/g, '');

answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:22

echo_Me

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:22

1

3 options:

var strg = "there is space";
strg.replace(/\s+/g, ' ');

or:

$.trim()

or:

String.prototype.trim = function() { 
    return this.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, ""); 
}

var strg = "there is space";
strg.trim();

answered Nov 28 '12 at 20:22

KingKongFrog

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but I don't want to remove spaces if there are any results, then spaces in those results will be also removed.. now I can do if data.length == 2 then trim it using ur way.. thank you very much.. – Naveen Gamage Nov 28 '12 at 20:38

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 26 '18 at 05:36

1

data = data.split(' ').join('') that will remove all spaces from a string.

answered Apr 26 '18 at 05:36

AJ Genung

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Remove spaces in a Javascript variable

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