Strip/replace spaces within a string

Question

Given a string "5 900 000"

I want to get rid of the spaces using gsub with the following pattern:

gsub(/\s/, '')

but that doesn't seem to work. Nor does:

gsub(' ', '')

Not sure if that was intentional, but there shouldn't be a period after gsub. "gsub(' ', '')" not "gsub.(' ', '')" — Patrick McElhaney
– Patrick McElhaney, Commented Jun 16, 2009 at 12:42

tvanfosson · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-16 19:01:48Z

34

If you want to do the replacement in place, you need to use:

str.gsub!(/\s/,'')

Alternatively, gsub returns the string with the replacements

str2 = str.gsub(/\s/,'')

EDIT: Based on your answer, it looks like you have some unprintable characters embedded in the string, not spaces. Using /\D/ as the search string may be what you want. The following will match any non-digit character and replace it with the empty string.

str.gsub!(/\D/,'')

edited Jun 16, 2009 at 19:01

answered Jun 16, 2009 at 12:40

tvanfosson

534k102 gold badges703 silver badges801 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Jonas Elfström · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-16 12:38:54Z

15

>> "5 900 00".gsub(' ','')
=> "590000"

Is it really a string?

.gsub returns the value, if you want to change the variable try .gsub!(" ", "")

answered Jun 16, 2009 at 12:38

Jonas Elfström

31.5k6 gold badges74 silver badges107 bronze badges

Comments

Telemachus · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-15 14:28:55Z

6

Depending on the situation, you may not need a regular expression. String#tr should work well if you want to replace a single space with the empty string:

telemachus ~ $ irb
>> "500 500 12".tr(' ', '')
=> "50050012"
>> "500 500 12".tr!(' ', '')
=> "50050012"

As with gsub and gsub!, the ! method makes the change in place as opposed to returning the changed result. I don't know which you want here.

In a case like this, tr seems more straightforward to me. I'm not looking for optimization, but it is good to remember that there are lots of string methods other than regular expressions.

edited Dec 15, 2022 at 14:28

answered Jun 16, 2009 at 13:50

Telemachus

19.8k7 gold badges60 silver badges83 bronze badges

3 Comments

23inhouse Over a year ago

Not sure if tr is a good option? Translates str in place, using the same rules as String#tr. Returns str, or nil if no changes were made. So if the string doesn't match anything, it will return nil.

Telemachus Over a year ago

@23inhouse I'm not sure what you mean. For the first tr, I think you mean tr!. (The whole difference between tr and tr! is that tr does not make the changes in place. As for returning nil, whether or not that's ok depends on the larger application. The op hasn't given us enough to go on. It might be fine or it might be a mistake.

23inhouse Over a year ago

true, i thought it worth mentioning.

Robert Klemme · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-17 11:46:03Z

2

I suggest doing str.gsub!(/\s+/, '') for efficiency reasons.

answered Jun 17, 2009 at 11:46

Robert Klemme

Comments

Jai Kumar Rajput · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-29 13:31:36Z

2

Try this hope this will helpful :

2.2.1 :001> str= "  Jai   Kumar rajput ";
  # "  Jai   Kumar rajput "
2.2.1 :001> str.squish.downcase.tr(" ","");
  # "JaiKumarRajput"

edited Oct 29, 2015 at 13:31

answered Oct 29, 2015 at 13:24

Jai Kumar Rajput

4,2273 gold badges41 silver badges67 bronze badges

Comments

Yoann Le Touche · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-16 12:42:43Z

1

"5 900 000".gsub(/\s/,'') works fine

From what I see you wrote gsub dot (foo,bar) where it must be string.gsub(foo,bar)

answered Jun 16, 2009 at 12:42

Yoann Le Touche

1,3009 silver badges14 bronze badges

Comments

instanceof me · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-16 12:41:01Z

0

print "5 900 000".gsub(/\s/, '')

Works for me.

Are you affecting the result to the variable ?

answered Jun 16, 2009 at 12:41

instanceof me

39.3k3 gold badges33 silver badges41 bronze badges

Comments

SztupY · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-16 12:42:48Z

0

do you mean

str.gsub!.(/\s/,'')

with the exclamation mark?

answered Jun 16, 2009 at 12:42

SztupY

10.6k9 gold badges68 silver badges91 bronze badges

Comments

Grzegorz Kazulak · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-16 12:54:49Z

0

The funny thing is that when I print the string i get

697\302\240000

but what gets to the database is: 697 000. I know that patterns i have given should work as well as your suggestions, but this seems to be a little bit 'dodgy' case :-)

answered Jun 16, 2009 at 12:54

Grzegorz Kazulak

4243 gold badges7 silver badges12 bronze badges

2 Comments

rampion Over a year ago

in this case try str.gsub!(/\D/,'')

Jonas Elfström Apr 28 at 12:19

That explains it. \302\240 is the octal representation of hexadecimal 0xC2 0xA0. The latter is how UTF-8 represents U+00A0. Lastly U+00A0 is a non-breaking space. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Strip/replace spaces within a string

9 Answers 9

Comments

Comments

3 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

9 Answers 9

Comments

Comments

3 Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related