Replace any number of spaces using regular expressions

Question

How can I replace any number of consecutive spaces, with, for example, a tab in a text editor supporting regular expressions (like Notepad++)

To clarify: Replacing every occurrence of one or more spaces, with (for example) a tab. All spaces will be gone after substitution.

Solution 1

How do I replace any number of spaces using regular expressions

Notepad++ Solution

To match one or more space characters:

• Set "Find what" to + (space followed by +)

To match one of more whitespace characters (space, EOL, and tab all count as whitespace):

• Set "Find what" to \s+

  Warning: Using \s+ will match end of line and therefore join multiple lines together (separated by the "replace with" string)

To replace with a tab character:

• Set "Replace with" to \t

To enable regular expression (so the above special codes will work)

• Select "Regular expression".

Source How to use regular expressions in Notepad++ (tutorial)

Solution 2

Taken from here:

Use as "find" expression:

 {1,}

namely a space followed by {1,}.

To replace with tab, enter ^t in the replace box. Don't forget to activate regular expressions.

This link covers the syntax of the given regex. Below is an extract of a relevant part.

{n,} Matches when the preceding character occurs at least n times, for example, ba{2,}b will find 'baab', 'baaab' or 'baaaab' but NOT 'bab'. Values are enclosed in braces (curly brackets).

For the records, it has been tested on notepad++ (See here, courtesy of barlop). You can also put a \t in the replace box.

Comments

[hBy2Py]

Does "any number of consecutive whitespaces" mean one or more, or two or more?

[Antonio]

@Brian I meant one or more, I had not read carefully the link I posted in my answer, which is clearly mentioning multiple spaces. I have edited my answer.

[Antonio]

What the heck, why was the question downvoted?!?

[hBy2Py]

Someone probably thought it was too trivial. The syntax you need for this is one of the most basic elements of Regex. Still, as long as the question isn't duplicative, there may be value in having it as a part of SE.

[Antonio]

@Brian Yep, but I don't think a question should be downvoted, supposedly, for lack of research when also an answer is provided!!!... Thanks for the feedback!

[Antonio]

@Brian There it is!

[Antonio]

@Brian For completeness, that's the proposal at meta.stackexchange.com/questions/252190/… (It was made independent from this question, on which there were different opinions). It was not very successful, but at least I was not the only one who thought the feature could be useful :)

[barlop]

@DavidPostill It works for Notepad++ it's just a regular expression. Not ms word specific. see here i.stack.imgur.com/z7OjC.png And doing {2,} is better than your ` +` because your one as you know will also replace a single/individual space. And this solution has the flexibility that the number can be changed. Whereas + is only for "one or more", and it's likely the OP meant 2 or more.

[barlop]

@DavidPostill but Antonio's link was a horrible reference, because Word is different and can have its own syntax.

[Antonio]

@barlop The link was the first result from google. And worked. I thought it could be useful to have the question answered also on the Stack website. I meant 1 or more :) and I was surprised in seeing the 2 there, worked in my use case because at each occurrence I had at least 2 spaces. Now the regular expression is much clearer, thanks!

[Antonio]

@barlop Again, about the link, I think it's not a bad guide at all, since ,despite being a Word environment, it uses regular expressions which are very general. It's just lacking some explanations of the mechanism (as you duly provided, thanks) which, however, it's probably out of reach for the target of that article.

[hBy2Py]

Regex is not truly universal. Different implementations of Regex support a subset of all the various functionalities that are out there, and the syntax for them can differ subtly or dramatically between implementations. In my own experience, for example, the Regex syntax in MS Office VBA and in Python are pretty dramatically different.

[barlop]

There is also a bit of a mixup between spaces and whitespaces in the question..where the title says space and the first line says whitespace. I think you meant whitespaces..

[Ramhound]

I issued a downvote because you should have pulled more content from the referenced website. I believe this answer to be incomplete if one were NOT to visit that website.

[Antonio]

@Ramhound Are you speaking about the current (at the time of downvote) version or about the original version of the answer? I believe as it is now it takes all necessary parts (indeed, very little), now the website is mainly linked to acknowledge authorship.

[Ramhound]

@Antonio - I am judging the usefulness of the answer based on the current revision.

[Antonio]

@Ramhound I struggle to understand how, removed the first line (authorship acknowledgment), the answer can be considered not sufficiently documented.

[Ramhound]

@Antonio - I have express the reason for the downvote. When my concern is address I will reverse it. But I won't be spending more time explaining the reason.

[Antonio]

@Ramhound You said that the answer is missing fundamental information contained in the link. I am trying to understand what is the missing information you are referring to (which you did not specify) and possibly improve the answer, not to waste your time.

[Ramhound]

@Antonio - Honestly. I only made that comment since I feel you will just argue about anything I actually point out.

[Antonio]

@Ramhound It seems we're on the same ship (a pretty crowded one :) )