javascript regex white spaces before and after "sentence" need to be removed

Question

I need to remove all the white spaces before the first character (which is not a white space) and remove all the white spaces after the last character (which is not a white space).

Looks like this:

'                 a boat has an anchor       '

Should be 'a boat has an anchor'

'   $$%&@$&$%& lollerskates #372734§     '

Should be '$$%&@$&$%& lollerskates #372734§'

Please ignore the single quotes, they are there to show the white space.

Wanted a regex solution if possible. I'm just not particularly great with regex. — Shazboticus S Shazbot, Nov 06 '13 at 17:46
See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/498970/how-do-i-trim-a-string-in-javascript — megawac, Nov 06 '13 at 17:49

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 06 '13 at 17:47

8

string.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, "");

answered Nov 06 '13 at 17:47

Ankit Tyagi

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What would it be if I wanted to remove all spaces that exist after the last character except for one (also keep the remove all white spaces before first character)... so it looks like 'bobby has a boat ' <--wrote nbsp; because stackoverflow removes my white space – Shazboticus S Shazbot Nov 06 '13 at 17:57
@ShazboticusSShazbot You could use `string.replace(/^\s+|(\s)\s+$/g, "$1");` or `string.replace(/^\s+|\s+(?=\s$)/g, "")` if you understand lookaheads. – Jerry Nov 06 '13 at 18:25

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 06 '13 at 17:47

6

There is a native method for this. string.trim

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/Trim

var orig = "   foo  ";

alert( orig.trim() );

answered Nov 06 '13 at 17:47

posit labs

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Thank you for mentioning this, didn't know about it. – Shazboticus S Shazbot Nov 06 '13 at 18:01

javascript regex white spaces before and after "sentence" need to be removed

2 Answers2