CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexpostgresql
Absonegative
Absonegative

Reputation: 77

Skip leading and trailing white space

I am using regexp_split_to_array to split a text in words by cutting of white space as following:

select regexp_split_to_array('  this   is    just    me   ', '\s+');

This gives:

{"",this,is,just,me,""}

I want to have:

{this,is,just,me}

Is there a way to remove the leading and trailing white space when applying regexp_split_to_array?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 398

Answers (3)

Pavan Kumar
Pavan Kumar

Reputation: 11

Try using trim on the string before passing it to regex_split_to_array function:

select regexp_split_to_array(trim('  this   is    just    me   '), '\s+');

Upvotes: 0

Wiktor Stribiżew
Wiktor Stribiżew

Reputation: 626689

I suggest the inverse approach: match any char(s) other than whitespace with \S+ regex pattern:

select regexp_matches('  this   is    just    me   ', '\S+', 'g')

See the online demo. Note that 'g' argument will enable multiple matching.

enter image description here

Use unnest on the regexp matches to expand an array to a set of rows if necessary.

Upvotes: 1

Alexander van Oostenrijk
Alexander van Oostenrijk

Reputation: 4754

This should do it:

SELECT REGEXP_SPLIT_TO_ARRAY(TRIM('  this   is    just    me   '), '\s+');

TRIM with no parameters will remove both leading and trailing whitespace from a string.

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions