How to remove all line breaks from a string
JavascriptRegexStringJavascript Problem Overview
I have a text in a textarea and I read it out using the .value attribute.
Now I would like to remove all linebreaks (the character that is produced when you press Enter) from my text now using .replace with a regular expression, but how do I indicate a linebreak in a regex?
If that is not possible, is there another way?
Javascript Solutions
Solution 1 - Javascript
How you'd find a line break varies between operating system encodings. Windows would be \r\n
, but Linux just uses \n
and Apple uses \r
.
I found this in JavaScript line breaks:
someText = someText.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm, "");
That should remove all kinds of line breaks.
Solution 2 - Javascript
Line breaks (better: newlines) can be one of Carriage Return (CR, \r
, on older Macs), Line Feed (LF, \n
, on Unices incl. Linux) or CR followed by LF (\r\n
, on WinDOS). (Contrary to another answer, this has nothing to do with character encoding.)
Therefore, the most efficient RegExp
literal to match all variants is
/\r?\n|\r/
If you want to match all newlines in a string, use a global match,
/\r?\n|\r/g
respectively. Then proceed with the replace
method as suggested in several other answers. (Probably you do not want to remove the newlines, but replace them with other whitespace, for example the space character, so that words remain intact.)
Solution 3 - Javascript
var str = " \n this is a string \n \n \n"
console.log(str);
console.log(str.trim());
String.trim()
removes whitespace from the beginning and end of strings... including newlines.
const myString = " \n \n\n Hey! \n I'm a string!!! \n\n";
const trimmedString = myString.trim();
console.log(trimmedString);
// outputs: "Hey! \n I'm a string!!!"
Here's an example fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/BLs8u/
NOTE! it only trims the beginning and end of the string, not line breaks or whitespace in the middle of the string.
Solution 4 - Javascript
You can use \n
in a regex for newlines, and \r
for carriage returns.
var str2 = str.replace(/\n|\r/g, "");
Different operating systems use different line endings, with varying mixtures of \n
and \r
. This regex will replace them all.
Solution 5 - Javascript
The simplest solution would be:
let str = '\t\n\r this \n \t \r is \r a \n test \t \r \n';
str = str.replace(/\s+/g, ' ').trim();
console.log(str); // logs: "this is a test"
.replace()
with /\s+/g
regexp is changing all groups of white-spaces characters to a single space in the whole string then we .trim()
the result to remove all exceeding white-spaces before and after the text.
Are considered as white-spaces characters:
[ \f\n\r\t\v\u00a0\u1680\u2000-\u200a\u2028\u2029\u202f\u205f\u3000\ufeff]
Solution 6 - Javascript
If you want to remove all control characters, including CR and LF, you can use this:
myString.replace(/[^\x20-\x7E]/gmi, "")
It will remove all non-printable characters. This are all characters NOT within the ASCII HEX space 0x20-0x7E
. Feel free to modify the HEX range as needed.
Solution 7 - Javascript
var str = "bar\r\nbaz\nfoo";
str.replace(/[\r\n]/g, '');
>> "barbazfoo"
Solution 8 - Javascript
To remove new line chars use this:
yourString.replace(/\r?\n?/g, '')
Then you can trim your string to remove leading and trailing spaces:
yourString.trim()
Solution 9 - Javascript
This will replace the line break by empty space.
someText = someText.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm,"");
Read more on this article.
Solution 10 - Javascript
USE THIS FUNCTION BELOW AND MAKE YOUR LIFE EASY
The easiest approach is using regular expressions to detect and replace newlines in the string. In this case, we use replace function along with string to replace with, which in our case is an empty string.
function remove_linebreaks( var message ) {
return message.replace( /[\r\n]+/gm, "" );
}
In the above expression, g and m are for global and multiline flags
Solution 11 - Javascript
The answer provided by PointedEars is everything most of us need. But by following Mathias Bynens's answer, I went on a Wikipedia trip and found this: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline>;.
The following is a drop-in function that implements everything the above Wiki page considers "new line" at the time of this answer.
If something doesn't fit your case, just remove it. Also, if you're looking for performance this might not be it, but for a quick tool that does the job in any case, this should be useful.
// replaces all "new line" characters contained in `someString` with the given `replacementString`
const replaceNewLineChars = ((someString, replacementString = ``) => { // defaults to just removing
const LF = `\u{000a}`; // Line Feed (\n)
const VT = `\u{000b}`; // Vertical Tab
const FF = `\u{000c}`; // Form Feed
const CR = `\u{000d}`; // Carriage Return (\r)
const CRLF = `${CR}${LF}`; // (\r\n)
const NEL = `\u{0085}`; // Next Line
const LS = `\u{2028}`; // Line Separator
const PS = `\u{2029}`; // Paragraph Separator
const lineTerminators = [LF, VT, FF, CR, CRLF, NEL, LS, PS]; // all Unicode `lineTerminators`
let finalString = someString.normalize(`NFD`); // better safe than sorry? Or is it?
for (let lineTerminator of lineTerminators) {
if (finalString.includes(lineTerminator)) { // check if the string contains the current `lineTerminator`
let regex = new RegExp(lineTerminator.normalize(`NFD`), `gu`); // create the `regex` for the current `lineTerminator`
finalString = finalString.replace(regex, replacementString); // perform the replacement
};
};
return finalString.normalize(`NFC`); // return the `finalString` (without any Unicode `lineTerminators`)
});
Solution 12 - Javascript
Simple we can remove new line by using text.replace(/\n/g, " ")
const text = 'Students next year\n GO \n For Trip \n';
console.log("Original : ", text);
var removed_new_line = text.replace(/\n/g, " ");
console.log("New : ", removed_new_line);
Solution 13 - Javascript
A linebreak in regex is \n, so your script would be
var test = 'this\nis\na\ntest\nwith\newlines';
console.log(test.replace(/\n/g, ' '));
Solution 14 - Javascript
I am adding my answer, it is just an addon to the above, as for me I tried all the /n options and it didn't work, I saw my text is comming from server with double slash so I used this:
var fixedText = yourString.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r|\\n)/gm, '');
Solution 15 - Javascript
I often use this regex for (html) strings inside jsons:
replace(/[\n\r\t\s]+/g, ' ')
The strings come from a html editor of a CMS or a i18n php. The common scenarios are:
- lorem(.,)\nipsum
- lorem(.,)\n ipsum
- lorem(.,)\n
ipsum
- lorem ipsum
- lorem\n\nipsum
- ... many others with mixed whitespaces (\t\s) and even \r
The regex avoids this ugly things:
lorem\nipsum => loremipsum
lorem,\nipsum => lorem,ipsum
lorem,\n\nipsum => lorem, ipsum
...
Surely not for all use cases and not the fastest one, but enough for most textareas and texts for websites or webapps.
Solution 16 - Javascript
Try the following code. It works on all platforms.
var break_for_winDOS = 'test\r\nwith\r\nline\r\nbreaks';
var break_for_linux = 'test\nwith\nline\nbreaks';
var break_for_older_mac = 'test\rwith\rline\rbreaks';
break_for_winDOS.replace(/(\r?\n|\r)/gm, ' ');
//output
'test with line breaks'
break_for_linux.replace(/(\r?\n|\r)/gm, ' ');
//output
'test with line breaks'
break_for_older_mac.replace(/(\r?\n|\r)/gm, ' ');
// Output
'test with line breaks'
Solution 17 - Javascript
If it happens that you don't need this htm characte  
shile using str.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm, "")
you can use this str.split('\n').join('');
cheers
Solution 18 - Javascript
1st way:
const yourString = 'How are you \n I am fine \n Hah'; // Or textInput, something else
const newStringWithoutLineBreaks = yourString.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm, "");
2nd way:
const yourString = 'How are you \n I am fine \n Hah'; // Or textInput, something else
const newStringWithoutLineBreaks = yourString.split('\n').join('');
Solution 19 - Javascript
On mac, just use \n
in regexp to match linebreaks. So the code will be string.replace(/\n/g, '')
, ps: the g followed means match all instead of just the first.
On windows, it will be \r\n
.
Solution 20 - Javascript
const text = 'test\nwith\nline\nbreaks'
const textWithoutBreaks = text.split('\n').join(' ')