Java how to replace 2 or more spaces with single s

Question

Looking for quick, simple way in Java to change this string

" hello     there   "

to something that looks like this

"hello there"

where I replace all those multiple spaces with a single space, except I also want the one or more spaces at the beginning of string to be gone.

Something like this gets me partly there

String mytext = " hello     there   ";
mytext = mytext.replaceAll("( )+", " ");

but not quite.

Answer 1

trim()

Removes only the leading & trailing spaces.

From Java Doc, "Returns a string whose value is this string, with any leading and trailing whitespace removed."

System.out.println(" D ev  Dum my ".trim());

"D ev Dum my"

replace(), replaceAll()

Replaces all the empty strings in the word,

System.out.println(" D ev  Dum my ".replace(" ",""));

System.out.println(" D ev  Dum my ".replaceAll(" ",""));

System.out.println(" D ev  Dum my ".replaceAll("\\s+",""));

Output:

"DevDummy"

"DevDummy"

"DevDummy"

Note: "\s+" is the regular expression similar to the empty space character.

Reference : https://www.codedjava.com/2018/06/replace-all-spaces-in-string-trim.html

Answer 2

"[ ]{2,}"

This will match more than one space.

String mytext = " hello     there   ";
//without trim -> " hello there"
//with trim -> "hello there"
mytext = mytext.trim().replaceAll("[ ]{2,}", " ");
System.out.println(mytext);

OUTPUT:

hello there

Answer 3

You just need a:

replaceAll("\\s{2,}", " ").trim();

where you match one or more spaces and replace them with a single space and then trim whitespaces at the beginning and end (you could actually invert by first trimming and then matching to make the regex quicker as someone pointed out).

To test this out quickly try:

System.out.println(new String(" hello     there   ").trim().replaceAll("\\s{2,}", " "));

and it will return:

"hello there"

Answer 4

To eliminate spaces at the beginning and at the end of the String, use String#trim() method. And then use your mytext.replaceAll("( )+", " ").

Answer 5

You could use lookarounds also.

test.replaceAll("^ +| +$|(?<= ) ", "");

OR

test.replaceAll("^ +| +$| (?= )", "")

<space>(?= ) matches a space character which is followed by another space character. So in consecutive spaces, it would match all the spaces except the last because it isn't followed by a space character. This leaving you a single space for consecutive spaces after the removal operation.

Example:

    String[] tests = {
            "  x  ",          // [x]
            "  1   2   3  ",  // [1 2 3]
            "",               // []
            "   ",            // []
        };
        for (String test : tests) {
            System.out.format("[%s]%n",
                test.replaceAll("^ +| +$| (?= )", "")
            );
        }

Answer 6

Stream version, filters spaces and tabs.

Stream.of(str.split("[ \\t]")).filter(s -> s.length() > 0).collect(Collectors.joining(" "))