Replace spaces in string with regex in Java

Question

I'm trying to replace all all spaces in string with one space. I'm trying this:

String src = "2.       Test Sentence with     spaces";
String out = src.replaceAll("\\s+", " ");
System.out.println(out);

And this is what I'm getting:

2.       Test Sentence with spaces

Spaces after dot were not replaced... Why?

Could you take a look at your program in your editor's hex mode - perhaps there are some strange Unicode codepoints where you think that there are just spaces? — Tim Pietzcker, Sep 30 '14 at 14:28
So, in HEX mode there is "c2 a0 NO-BREAK SPACE" symbols... How can I replace ALL spaces? Thanks! — user2783755, Sep 30 '14 at 14:42

Mena · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-30T14:58:43.820

3

You can try with the Unicode category: separator, space, combined with whitespace:

String input = "\u0020\u00A0\u1680\u2000\u2001\t"; //etc. 17 characters
System.out.println(input.replaceAll("[\\p{Zs}\\s]+", " "));

Output

[1 space]

See here for the list of characters in category Zs.

edited Sep 30 '14 at 14:58

answered Sep 30 '14 at 14:52

Mena

1 Answers1