CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptregex
user3378165
user3378165

Reputation: 6896

Remove illegal characters from a file name but leave spaces

I have the following line of code to remove illegal characters from a file name:

str= str.replace(/([^a-z0-9]+)/gi, '-');

That works fine but it also removes the spaces, how can I only remove the illegal characters but leave the spaces?

Upvotes: 36

Views: 47047

Answers (4)

user2226755
user2226755

Reputation: 13159

You can use \W+

\W (non-word-character) matches any single character that doesn't match by \w (same as [^a-zA-Z0-9_])
Source: https://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/ehchua/programming/howto/Regexe.html

str = str.replace(/(\W+)/gi, '-');

Upvotes: 8

ibrahim mahrir
ibrahim mahrir

Reputation: 31682

Illegal characters are listed here. To replace them use this regex /[/\\?%*:|"<>]/g like this:

var filename = "f?:i/le>  n%a|m\\e.ext";

filename = filename.replace(/[/\\?%*:|"<>]/g, '-');

console.log(filename);

Upvotes: 82

Kit
Kit

Reputation: 742

Add the '\s' whitespace to your exclusion.

str = str.replace(/([^a-z0-9\s]+)/gi, '-');

Upvotes: 1

Pineda
Pineda

Reputation: 7593

You are searching for all non numeric and roman letters. If you want to exclude the space from being replaced:

Just add a space to the selection to exclude :)

str= str.replace(/([^a-z0-9 ]+)/gi, '-');
// add a space here -------^

Upvotes: 8

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