javascript trim() doesn't work

Question

i'm trying to trim down a string before removing parts of it, but there's something off about the spaces in the string.

the string i'm trying to trim is this

        200    KristianMedK                                                                fisk                                                         {dropdownbegin}                                  Ikke valgt                        fisk                        fugl                                                dinosaur                                                kristian                                                         {dropdownend}                                                                        Ikke valgt                                                                {dropdownbegin}                                  Ikke valgt                                            KristianMedK                       Laks                       TunMedT                       lasse                           {dropdownend}

the string is being returned from the .text() method of an element in the tablesorter jquery library. I've already filtered out a bunch of ↵ characters from the string by

mystring = mystring.replace(/\n/g, "")

using

mystring= mystring.replace(" ","")

made no difference either.

How can i find out where if any otoher special characters is hiding in the string messing with the javascript?

my end goal is removing the content between the {dropdownbegin} and {dropdownend} but the substring i get when getting indexof is wrong and includes some of the text after the {dropdownend}

    var index1 = text.indexOf("{dropdownbegin}");
    var index2 = text.indexOf("{dropdownend}");
    var substr = text.substr(index1, index2);
    text = text.replace(substr, "");

the above code gives the substring

{dropdownbegin} Ikke valgt fisk fugl dinosaur kristian {dropdownend} Ikke valg

for reasons i do not know.

EDIT the trim issue was solved quickly as i failed to search properly for existing questions.

If you're already using jQuery, try myString = $.trim(myString); — Chris Dixon, Mar 17 '14 at 12:35
it should be `mystring= mystring.replace(/\s+/g, ' ') ` - you need to use a regex to replace multiple instances — Arun P Johny, Mar 17 '14 at 12:36
this is a duplicate as suggested by pavel, don't know how to close the question myself — KristianMedK, Mar 17 '14 at 12:42
@KristianMedK also you might be better of using `$.trim()` so that the leading and trailing spaces are removed like `mystring= $.trim(mystring.replace(/\s+/g, ' '))` — Arun P Johny, Mar 17 '14 at 12:45

Jak · Answer 1 · 2014-03-17T12:53:08.893

3

Try mystring.replace(/\s+/g, ' '); and $.trim()

As Pavel and Arun P pointed in the comment, it is a possible duplicate question.

edited Mar 17 '14 at 12:53

answered Mar 17 '14 at 12:37

Jak

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this works, the substring is still wrong however which bugs my quite a bit. will edit question to elaborate. – KristianMedK Mar 17 '14 at 12:38
Was just about to post this. This replaces all whitespace characters (space, tab, etc.) – Gavin Mar 17 '14 at 12:39
This will leave a space at the beginning and end of the string if there's any space there to start with. – T.J. Crowder Mar 17 '14 at 12:40

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 17 '14 at 12:41

As you can read in the documentation of the trim() function, this function removes whitespaces before and after the string but it won't touch the whitespaces in the string.

If you want to remove the whitespaces in the string too, you have to write your own function.

Here a little example:

function cleanStr(str) {
    while (str.indexOf("\t") > -1) {
        str = str.replace("\t", " ");
    }
    while (str.indexOf("  ") > -1) {
        str = str.replace("  ", " ");
    }
    return str;
}

Example of use:

cleanStr("   aasdfqwer         wer  asdaf       awer   5asadf   sdf          ");

Result:

" aasdfqwer wer asdaf awer 5asadf sdf "

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 17 '14 at 12:38

1

I will go only for your end goal:

var str = "Test with {dropdownbegin} content and stuff{dropdownend}coolness";
var filtered = str.replace(/\{dropdownbegin\}.*\{dropdownend\}/, ''); // "Test with coolness"

answered Mar 17 '14 at 12:38

Tibos

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this still removes the "ikke valgt" part, or "coolness" in your example. – KristianMedK Mar 17 '14 at 12:49
In my example it didn't. Perhaps the problem is somewhere else?`"{dropdownbegin} Ikke valgt fisk fugl dinosaur kristian {dropdownend} Ikke valg".replace(/\{dropdownbegin\}.*\{dropdownend\}/, '');` Results in " Ikke valg" – Tibos Mar 17 '14 at 12:52
i'm suspecting some special characters still lurking in the original text string, but i can't find them, or a way to get rid of all special chars altogether – KristianMedK Mar 17 '14 at 12:54
well cleaning the string made the table sorting possible, i just had to move the cleaning from dofilter(table) to the filterfunction. – KristianMedK Mar 17 '14 at 13:09

javascript trim() doesn't work

3 Answers3