Adding space after dot but not in URL

Question

I have a text that has sentences that may not have space after a dot like:

See also vadding.Constructions on this term abound.

How can I add a space after a dot that is not before the domain name? The text may have URLs like:

See also vadding.Constructions on this term abound. http://example.com/foo/bar

is url always in last? does url always start with `http(s)`? — rock321987, Apr 24 '16 at 17:13
I suggest you to get the URL from string, remove it, than add spaces on the string, and at the finish add the address again to string — Marcel Kohls, Apr 24 '16 at 17:15

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

4

Match and capture an URL and just match all other dots to replace with a dot+space:

var re = /((?:https?|ftps?):\/\/\S+)|\.(?!\s)/g; 
var str = 'See also vadding.Constructions on this term abound.\nSee also vadding.Constructions on this term abound. http://example.com/foo/bar';
var result = str.replace(re, function(m, g1) {
 return g1 ? g1 : ". ";
});
document.body.innerHTML = "<pre>" + result + "</pre>";

The URL regex - (?:https?|ftps?):\/\/\S+ - matches http or https or ftp, ftps, then :// and 1+ non-whitespaces (\S+). It is one of the basic ones, you can use a more complex one that you can easily find on SO. E.g. see What is a good regular expression to match a URL?.

The approach in more detail:

The ((?:https?|ftps?):\/\/\S+)|\.(?!\s) regex has 2 alternatives: the URL matching part (described above), or (|) the dot matching part (\.(?!\s)).

NOTE that (?!\s) is a negative lookahead that allows matching a dot that is NOT followed with a whitespace.

When we run string.replace() we can specify an anonymous callback function as the second argument and pass the match and group arguments to it. So, here, we have 1 match value (m) and 1 capture group value g1 (the URL). If the URL was matched, g1 is not null. return g1 ? g1 : ". "; means we do not modify the group 1 if it was matched, and if it was not, we matched a standalone dot, thus, we replace with with . .

edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

Community

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answered Apr 24 '16 at 17:19

Wiktor Stribiżew

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I re-read the question and adjusted the answer to only add spaces after dots that are not followed with a space: `var re = /((?:https?|ftps?):\/\/\S+)|\.(?!\s)/g;`. Please review and let me know which option to keep. – Wiktor Stribiżew Apr 24 '16 at 17:32
This replace all dots by dot and space but not in url, I need to have only one space after dot. – jcubic Apr 24 '16 at 17:33
Do you want to say you need to only add a space after 1 dot that is immediately followed with a URL? Then see Shafizadeh's answer. – Wiktor Stribiżew Apr 24 '16 at 17:35
No, in your solution dot before the url have 2 spaces (because it already have a space) and it need to have one space only. – jcubic Apr 24 '16 at 17:40
@jcubic: My update (see the first comment) is exactly what you need. **I precised the answer**. – Wiktor Stribiżew Apr 24 '16 at 17:42

Shafizadeh · Answer 2 · 2016-04-24T17:39:11.990

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Use this pattern:

/\.(?! )((?:ftp|http)[^ ]+)?/g

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edited Apr 24 '16 at 17:39

answered Apr 24 '16 at 17:15

Shafizadeh

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It need to replace first dot. – jcubic Apr 24 '16 at 17:16
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I guess this is what OP needs after the comment to my answer. Just add an option for `https` and remove the `?` – Wiktor Stribiżew Apr 24 '16 at 17:36

guest271314 · Answer 3 · 2016-04-24T17:32:35.007

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You can try using RegExp /(\.)(?!=[a-z]{2}\/|[a-z]{3}\/|\s+|$)/g to match . character if not followed by two or three lowercase letters or space character

"See also vadding.Constructions on this term abound. http://example.com/foo/bar"
.replace(/(\.)(?!=[a-z]{2}\/|[a-z]{3}\/|\s+|$)/g, "$1 ")

edited Apr 24 '16 at 17:32

answered Apr 24 '16 at 17:22

guest271314

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@WiktorStribiżew _"Why do you think it should work?"_ ? Not certain follow? – guest271314 Apr 24 '16 at 17:28
@WiktorStribiżew Given string at OP, should match only first `.` character. Added `$` to not match `.` if end of input; e.g., at first string at OP – guest271314 Apr 24 '16 at 17:29
@WiktorStribiżew Yes? `RegExp` at post should return expected results https://jsfiddle.net/b27yr1g1/ . Though currently tld's do exist tld's where `.` could be followed by more than two or three characters – guest271314 Apr 24 '16 at 17:35
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Never you mind, the question is unclear. See, even OP decided to answer himself. – Wiktor Stribiżew Apr 24 '16 at 17:39

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 24 '16 at 17:38

0

Using idea from @MarcelKohls

var text = "See also vadding.Constructions on this term abound. http://example.com/foo/bar";
var url_re = /(\bhttps?:\/\/(?:(?:(?!&[^;]+;)|(?=&amp;))[^\s"'<>\]\[)])+\b)/gi;
text = text.split(url_re).map(function(text) {
  if (text.match(url_re)) {
    return text;
  } else {
    return text.replace(/\.([^ ])/g, '. $1');
  }
}).join('');
document.body.innerHTML = '<pre>' + text + '</pre>';

answered Apr 24 '16 at 17:38

jcubic

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You can do that by pure regex `/\.(?! )((?:ftp|http)[^ ]+)?/g` !! *(without that callback and condition)* – Shafizadeh Apr 24 '16 at 17:40
My answer provides exactly the same behavior but is more compact. Please review it. I deleted the first regex I suggested and left only the version with a negative lookahead after a standalone dot matching alternative. – Wiktor Stribiżew Apr 24 '16 at 17:41

Adding space after dot but not in URL

4 Answers4

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