How can I remove a word from a string if it occures more than 1 in a row with regex

Question

I want to remove the word " " if it occures more than once consecutively. example

"word word " becomes "word word "

and "word word " becomes "word word "

I want to use replace or replace all if thats possible to keep it short

@user521180: question ain't exactly your question but... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348 You do really want to read the first answer :) — SyntaxT3rr0r, Mar 03 '11 at 19:31
@Syntax but the first answer is a rediculously unreadable tirade on the evils of regular expressions who's link is posted on every question that has markup in it. I guess yours is one more. — , Mar 03 '11 at 20:35

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 03 '11 at 17:44

6

I want to use replace or replace all if thats possible to keep it short

Sure, it's possible:

yourString = yourString.replaceAll("(<br>)+", "<br>");

It basically means replace all "  one or more times" with just " ".

answered Mar 03 '11 at 17:44

aioobe

Does it also capture the group? – adarshr Mar 03 '11 at 17:49
@adarshr, what do you mean? If you're asking if the group can be used in the replacement string, the answer is yes, through `$1`. – aioobe Mar 03 '11 at 17:51
1

@adarshr - yes, it captures a group for the replace. Poor cycles. If you're looking for efficiency you can write `(?:
){2,}`, but you may want to thing whether it's it's worth it. – Kobi Mar 03 '11 at 17:52
Yes, that's precisely what I meant! :) – adarshr Mar 03 '11 at 17:53

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 03 '11 at 17:54

This code is good to simplest situation:

str.replaceAll("(<br>)+", "<br>");

But if you want replace all br (case insensitive + ignore whitespaces), e.g.:

my word <BR>  <BR> blah blah -> my word <br> blah blah

I recommend you:

str.replaceAll("(?i)(<br>(\\s)*)+", "<br>")

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 03 '11 at 17:44

0

You can write a regex that matches the pattern only if it occurs more than one time.

answered Mar 03 '11 at 17:44

Jeremy Whitlock

aioobe took it one step further and gave you the answer. – Jeremy Whitlock Mar 03 '11 at 17:45

3 Answers3