How to remove space from string? [duplicate]

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• How to trim whitespace from a Bash variable? 41 answers

In ubuntu bash script how to remove space from one variable

string will be

   3918912k 

Want to remove all blank space.

Answer 1

A funny way to remove all spaces from a variable is to use printf:

$ myvar='a cool variable    with   lots of   spaces in it'
$ printf -v myvar '%s' $myvar
$ echo "$myvar"
acoolvariablewithlotsofspacesinit

It turns out it's slightly more efficient than myvar="${myvar// /}", but not safe regarding globs (*) that can appear in the string. So don't use it in production code.

If you really really want to use this method and are really worried about the globbing thing (and you really should), you can use set -f (which disables globbing altogether):

$ ls
file1  file2
$ myvar='  a cool variable with spaces  and  oh! no! there is  a  glob  *  in it'
$ echo "$myvar"
  a cool variable with spaces  and  oh! no! there is  a  glob  *  in it
$ printf '%s' $myvar ; echo
acoolvariablewithspacesandoh!no!thereisaglobfile1file2init
$ # See the trouble? Let's fix it with set -f:
$ set -f
$ printf '%s' $myvar ; echo
acoolvariablewithspacesandoh!no!thereisaglob*init
$ # Since we like globbing, we unset the f option:
$ set +f

I posted this answer just because it's funny, not to use it in practice.

Answer 2

The tools sed or tr will do this for you by swapping the whitespace for nothing

sed 's/ //g'

tr -d ' '

Example:

$ echo "   3918912k " | sed 's/ //g'
3918912k

Answer 3

You can also use echo to remove blank spaces, either at the beginning or at the end of the string, but also repeating spaces inside the string.

$ myVar="    kokor    iiij     ook      "
$ echo "$myVar"
    kokor    iiij     ook      
$ myVar=`echo $myVar`
$
$ # myVar is not set to "kokor iiij ook"
$ echo "$myVar"
kokor iiij ook

Answer 4

Since you're using bash, the fastest way would be:

shopt -s extglob # Allow extended globbing
var=" lakdjsf   lkadsjf "
echo "${var//+([[:space:]])/}"

It's fastest because it uses built-in functions instead of firing up extra processes.

However, if you want to do it in a POSIX-compliant way, use sed:

var=" lakdjsf   lkadsjf "
echo "$var" | sed 's/[[:space:]]//g'

Answer 5

Try doing this in a shell:

s="  3918912k"
echo ${s//[[:blank:]]/}

That uses parameter expansion (it's a non posix feature)

[[:blank:]] is a POSIX regex class (remove spaces, tabs...), see http://www.regular-expressions.info/posixbrackets.html