How to trim empty space in the center of a string?

Question

I have dynamically generated JSON file with data. Some of the data generate error of an invalid json:

SyntaxError: JSON.parse: bad control character in string literal at line 34447 column 24 of the JSON data

I located problems and some of these are

"live_href": "http://   http://google.com",
or
"login_pass": "bourdfthuk.midas.admin   r3adqerds7one",

I already fixed whitespace at the beginning and end with .trim() but trim won't remove whitespace in the center of a string.

Thing is, the spaces in that string wouldn't make the JSON invalid... — user184994, Dec 15 '17 at 14:22
Instead of "fixing" the JSON before parsing, fix the generation on the server. — Andreas, Dec 15 '17 at 14:22
@Andreas, yes I'm trying to fix it before it populates on the server. I'm using nodejs ejs file to do that — Katerpiler, Dec 15 '17 at 14:23
@user184994, test it here https://jsonlint.com/ and you will see it does! — Katerpiler, Dec 15 '17 at 14:26
@Katerpiler I just did, and as long as it's wrapped in braces so it knows it's an object, it's perfectly valid — user184994, Dec 15 '17 at 14:27
As already mentioned there is something wrong with the way you create it. — charlietfl, Dec 15 '17 at 14:28
@user184994, show me the valid json with whitespace how you're suggesting because it is giving me an error on that site — Katerpiler, Dec 15 '17 at 14:37
@charlietfl, any idea how to define it so it translates as string even with whitespace? — Katerpiler, Dec 15 '17 at 14:52
No idea unless you show how source is created. Can have unlimited spaces in a string and wouldn't affect json validity if it is properly created and stored — charlietfl, Dec 15 '17 at 14:54
@Andreas, I actually needed this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/13788335/3498491 — Katerpiler, Dec 18 '17 at 18:33

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 15 '17 at 14:23

4

Use this

str.replace(/\s/g,'')

The g repeats for all whitespace instances and the s is for all white spaces and not just the literal characters.

answered Dec 15 '17 at 14:23

schylake

434
3
14

1

Actually no, this doesn't work correctly. It makes json valid but it removes all spaces which makes other things wrongly formated. I have site names like "North Dakota Server Site" and that becomes "NorthDakotaServerSite". – Katerpiler Dec 15 '17 at 14:34

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 15 '17 at 14:57

I see what you are trying to do. In that case, you will have to loop through your string like so:

var word = "North Dakota       Blah blah";
word = word.split(' ');
for (var x = 0; x < word.length; x++) {
    if (word[x] === "") {
      word.splice(x, 1);
      x--;
  }
}
word = word.join(' ');
console.log(word);

Working example: https://jsfiddle.net/85sj4ay6/2/

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 15 '17 at 14:40

As someone already mentioned, your json is invalid, so you therefore cannot parse it into JSON. However, if it was valid, it would essentially work like this:

var myJson = {"login_pass": "bourdfthuk.midas.admin   r3adqerds7one"};

myJson.login_pass = myJson.login_pass.replace(/ /g, '');
console.log(myJson);

Working example: https://jsfiddle.net/85sj4ay6/

How to trim empty space in the center of a string?

3 Answers3