Replace plus, double quotes and spaces except spaces surrounded by double quotes

Question

I have such text text + " " + getIncrementedNumber(). I want to replace to empty string the following characters via JavaScript: +, " and all spaces except that spaces, which are surounded by double quotes. Examples of input and output, which I want to achieve:

• input: text + " " + getIncrementedNumber();

  output: text getIncrementedNumber()

• input: text + "WhateveR" + getIncrementedNumber();

  output: textWhateveRgetIncrementedNumber()

• input: text +"Lorem ipsuM"+ getIncrementedNumber();

  output: textLorem ipsuMgetIncrementedNumber()

I am trying with these RegExps:

• sourceText.replace( /\+|\s|\b"(.*?)\b"/g, '' ), which results in 'text""getIncrementedNumber()'
• sourceText.replace( /\+|\s|\"(.*?)\"/g, '' ), which results in 'textgetIncrementedNumber()'

So I have a problem with excluding replacing spaces in between double quotes.

Answer 1

You can use:

str = str.replace(/[+"]|[ \t]+(?=(?:(?:[^"]*"){2})*[^"]*$)/gm, '');

RegEx Demo

RegEx Breakup:

• [+"]: Match + or :
• |: OR
• [ \t]+(?=(?:(?:[^"]*"){2})*[^"]*$): Match a space or tab that is outside the quotes by using a lookahead to assert even number of quotes ahead.

Answer 2

You could use

/\s*\+\s*"([^"]*)"\s*\+\s*/g

Snippet:

var s = 'text +"Lorem ipsuM"+ getIncrementedNumber()';
s = s.replace(/\s*\+\s*"([^"]*)"\s*\+\s*/g, "$1");
console.log(s);