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

public class RemoveExtraSpacesEfficient {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        String s = "my    name is    mr    space ";

        char[] charArray = s.toCharArray();

        char prev = s.charAt(0);

        for (int i = 0; i < charArray.length; i++) {
            char cur = charArray[i];
            if (cur == ' ' && prev == ' ') {

            } else {
                System.out.print(cur);
            }
            prev = cur;
        }
    }
}

The above solution is the algorithm with the complexity of O(n) without using any java function.

Answer 2

My method before I found the second answer using regex as a better solution. Maybe someone needs this code.

private String replaceMultipleSpacesFromString(String s){
    if(s.length() == 0 ) return "";

    int timesSpace = 0;
    String res = "";

    for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
        char c = s.charAt(i);

        if(c == ' '){
            timesSpace++;
            if(timesSpace < 2)
                res += c;
        }else{
            res += c;
            timesSpace = 0;
        }
    }

    return res.trim();
}

Answer 3

Try this:

String after = before.trim().replaceAll(" +", " ");

See also

• String.trim()
  • Returns a copy of the string, with leading and trailing whitespace omitted.
• regular-expressions.info/Repetition

---

No trim() regex

It's also possible to do this with just one replaceAll, but this is much less readable than the trim() solution. Nonetheless, it's provided here just to show what regex can do:

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

There are 3 alternates:

• ^_+ : any sequence of spaces at the beginning of the string
  • Match and replace with $1, which captures the empty string
• _+$ : any sequence of spaces at the end of the string
  • Match and replace with $1, which captures the empty string
• (_)+ : any sequence of spaces that matches none of the above, meaning it's in the middle
  • Match and replace with $1, which captures a single space

See also

• regular-expressions.info/Anchors

Answer 4

Try this one.

Sample Code

String str = " hello     there   ";
System.out.println(str.replaceAll("( +)"," ").trim());

OUTPUT

hello there

First it will replace all the spaces with single space. Than we have to supposed to do trim String because Starting of the String and End of the String it will replace the all space with single space if String has spaces at Starting of the String and End of the String So we need to trim them. Than you get your desired String.

Answer 5

check this...

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String s = "A B  C   D    E F      G\tH I\rJ\nK\tL";
    System.out.println("Current      : "+s);
    System.out.println("Single Space : "+singleSpace(s));
    System.out.println("Space  count : "+spaceCount(s));
    System.out.format("Replace  all = %s", s.replaceAll("\\s+", ""));

    // Example where it uses the most.
    String s = "My name is yashwanth . M";
    String s2 = "My nameis yashwanth.M";

    System.out.println("Normal  : "+s.equals(s2));
    System.out.println("Replace : "+s.replaceAll("\\s+", "").equals(s2.replaceAll("\\s+", "")));

} 

If String contains only single-space then replace() will not-replace,

If spaces are more than one, Then replace() action performs and removes spacess.

public static String singleSpace(String str){
    return str.replaceAll("  +|   +|\t|\r|\n","");
}

To count the number of spaces in a String.

public static String spaceCount(String str){
    int i = 0;
    while(str.indexOf(" ") > -1){
      //str = str.replaceFirst(" ", ""+(i++));
        str = str.replaceFirst(Pattern.quote(" "), ""+(i++)); 
    }
    return str;
}

Pattern.quote("?") returns literal pattern String.

Answer 6

See String.replaceAll.

Use the regex "\s" and replace with " ".

Then use String.trim.