CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regex
Binary Logic
Binary Logic

Reputation: 2592

Replace string but preserve whitespace

I want to replace a string, but preserve the outer white space, if that makes sense.

Ex:

" Hello world  "

To:

"  Whatever I want  "

I figured there was a quick way to do this via regular expressions, but I can't figure it out. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1011

Answers (3)

Jonas Elfström
Jonas Elfström

Reputation: 31468

In Ruby this works

"  this is a message   ".gsub /^(\s*)(.*?)(\s*$)/, '\1and this is another\3'
=> "  and this is another   "

Upvotes: 2

bluefoot
bluefoot

Reputation: 10580

To replace " Hello world " to " Whatever you Want ", you can do something like:

"^\s*(.*?)\s*$"

Upvotes: 0

Jon
Jon

Reputation: 437914

Generally speaking, a regex that greedily matches ^\s*(.*)\s*$ and replaces the first capture group (inside the parens) should do it. But the particulars depend on the flavor of regex you are using.

Upvotes: 0

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