Regex remove additional spaces and line breaks but not all

Question

I am using regex to remove additional spaces. But I would like to keep single line-breaks.

'/\s+/'

How can I keep single line breaks?

Remove only extra unnecessary spaces and line-breaks.

I've tried '/\s{2,}/' but this still removes my line-breaks.

Can you provide test cases and the language you're working with? — Adam, Sep 23 '18 at 04:29
Use `'/\h{2,}/'`. Or, `'/[^\S\n]{2,}/'`, or `'/[^\S\n\r]{2,}/'` — Wiktor Stribiżew, Sep 23 '18 at 08:22

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

This will match extra spaces and new lines:

(?<= ) | +$|(?<=\n)\n

Explanation (space literals replaced with "[space]"):

(?<=[space])[space] | Match any space that has a preceding space
|                   | or
[space]+$           | Match one or more consecutive spaces at the end of a line
|                   | or
(?<=\n)\n           | Match any new line that has a preceding new line

The global and multi-line flags should be used with this expression. Simply replace the matches with nothing.

Regex remove additional spaces and line breaks but not all

1 Answers1

Try it here