What is the most efficient way to replace \\n with \n - c++

I ask this because I am using SFML strings. sf::String does not insert a new line in the presence of a \n.
I can't seem to figure out a way without using 3/4 STL algorithms.
std::replace_if(str.begin(), str.end(), [](const char&c](return c == '\\n'), '\n'});
does not work. The string remains the same.
I have also tried replacing the \\ occurrence with a temporary, say ~. This works, but when I go to replace the ~ with \, then it adds a \\ instead of a \
I have produced a solution by manually replacing and deleting duplicates after \n insertion :
for (auto it = str.begin(); it != str.end(); ++it) {
if (*it == '\\') {
if (it + 1 != str.end()) {
if (*(it + 1) != 'n') continue;
*it = '\n';
str.erase(it + 1);
}
}
}

You might do:
str = std::regex_replace(str, std::regex(R"(\\n)"), "\n")
Demo

The problem is that '\\n' is not a single character but two characters. So it needs to be stored in a string "\\n". But now std::replace_if doesn't work because it operates on elements and the elements of a std::string are single characters.
You can write a new function to replace sub-strings within a string and call that instead. For example:
std::string& replace_all(std::string& s, std::string const& from, std::string const& to)
{
if(!from.empty())
for(std::string::size_type pos = 0; (pos = s.find(from, pos) + 1); pos += to.size())
s.replace(--pos, from.size(), to);
return s;
}
// ...
std::string s = "a\\nb\\nc";
std::cout << s << '\n';
replace_all(s, "\\n", "\n");
std::cout << s << '\n';

Related

Converting a string of words to single string without spaces? [duplicate]

What is the preferred way to remove spaces from a string in C++? I could loop through all the characters and build a new string, but is there a better way?
The best thing to do is to use the algorithm remove_if and isspace:
remove_if(str.begin(), str.end(), isspace);
Now the algorithm itself can't change the container(only modify the values), so it actually shuffles the values around and returns a pointer to where the end now should be. So we have to call string::erase to actually modify the length of the container:
str.erase(remove_if(str.begin(), str.end(), isspace), str.end());
We should also note that remove_if will make at most one copy of the data. Here is a sample implementation:
template<typename T, typename P>
T remove_if(T beg, T end, P pred)
{
T dest = beg;
for (T itr = beg;itr != end; ++itr)
if (!pred(*itr))
*(dest++) = *itr;
return dest;
}
std::string::iterator end_pos = std::remove(str.begin(), str.end(), ' ');
str.erase(end_pos, str.end());
From gamedev
string.erase(std::remove_if(string.begin(), string.end(), std::isspace), string.end());
Can you use Boost String Algo? http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/doc/html/string_algo/usage.html#id1290573
erase_all(str, " ");
You can use this solution for removing a char:
#include <algorithm>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
str.erase(remove(str.begin(), str.end(), char_to_remove), str.end());
For trimming, use boost string algorithms:
#include <boost/algorithm/string.hpp>
using namespace std;
using namespace boost;
// ...
string str1(" hello world! ");
trim(str1); // str1 == "hello world!"
Hi, you can do something like that. This function deletes all spaces.
string delSpaces(string &str)
{
str.erase(std::remove(str.begin(), str.end(), ' '), str.end());
return str;
}
I made another function, that deletes all unnecessary spaces.
string delUnnecessary(string &str)
{
int size = str.length();
for(int j = 0; j<=size; j++)
{
for(int i = 0; i <=j; i++)
{
if(str[i] == ' ' && str[i+1] == ' ')
{
str.erase(str.begin() + i);
}
else if(str[0]== ' ')
{
str.erase(str.begin());
}
else if(str[i] == '\0' && str[i-1]== ' ')
{
str.erase(str.end() - 1);
}
}
}
return str;
}
If you want to do this with an easy macro, here's one:
#define REMOVE_SPACES(x) x.erase(std::remove(x.begin(), x.end(), ' '), x.end())
This assumes you have done #include <string> of course.
Call it like so:
std::string sName = " Example Name ";
REMOVE_SPACES(sName);
printf("%s",sName.c_str()); // requires #include <stdio.h>
string replaceinString(std::string str, std::string tofind, std::string toreplace)
{
size_t position = 0;
for ( position = str.find(tofind); position != std::string::npos; position = str.find(tofind,position) )
{
str.replace(position ,1, toreplace);
}
return(str);
}
use it:
string replace = replaceinString(thisstring, " ", "%20");
string replace2 = replaceinString(thisstring, " ", "-");
string replace3 = replaceinString(thisstring, " ", "+");
In C++20 you can use free function std::erase
std::string str = " Hello World !";
std::erase(str, ' ');
Full example:
#include<string>
#include<iostream>
int main() {
std::string str = " Hello World !";
std::erase(str, ' ');
std::cout << "|" << str <<"|";
}
I print | so that it is obvious that space at the begining is also removed.
note: this removes only the space, not every other possible character that may be considered whitespace, see https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/string/byte/isspace
#include <algorithm>
using namespace std;
int main() {
.
.
s.erase( remove( s.begin(), s.end(), ' ' ), s.end() );
.
.
}
Source:
Reference taken from this forum.
Removes all whitespace characters such as tabs and line breaks (C++11):
string str = " \n AB cd \t efg\v\n";
str = regex_replace(str,regex("\\s"),"");
I used the below work around for long - not sure about its complexity.
s.erase(std::unique(s.begin(),s.end(),[](char s,char f){return (f==' '||s==' ');}),s.end());
when you wanna remove character ' ' and some for example - use
s.erase(std::unique(s.begin(),s.end(),[](char s,char f){return ((f==' '||s==' ')||(f=='-'||s=='-'));}),s.end());
likewise just increase the || if number of characters you wanna remove is not 1
but as mentioned by others the erase remove idiom also seems fine.
string removeSpaces(string word) {
string newWord;
for (int i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) {
if (word[i] != ' ') {
newWord += word[i];
}
}
return newWord;
}
This code basically takes a string and iterates through every character in it. It then checks whether that string is a white space, if it isn't then the character is added to a new string.
Just for fun, as other answers are much better than this.
#include <boost/hana/functional/partial.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <range/v3/range/conversion.hpp>
#include <range/v3/view/filter.hpp>
int main() {
using ranges::to;
using ranges::views::filter;
using boost::hana::partial;
auto const& not_space = partial(std::not_equal_to<>{}, ' ');
auto const& to_string = to<std::string>;
std::string input = "2C F4 32 3C B9 DE";
std::string output = input | filter(not_space) | to_string;
assert(output == "2CF4323CB9DE");
}
I created a function, that removes the white spaces from the either ends of string. Such as
" Hello World ", will be converted into "Hello world".
This works similar to strip, lstrip and rstrip functions, which are frequently used in python.
string strip(string str) {
while (str[str.length() - 1] == ' ') {
str = str.substr(0, str.length() - 1);
}
while (str[0] == ' ') {
str = str.substr(1, str.length() - 1);
}
return str;
}
string lstrip(string str) {
while (str[0] == ' ') {
str = str.substr(1, str.length() - 1);
}
return str;
}
string rstrip(string str) {
while (str[str.length() - 1] == ' ') {
str = str.substr(0, str.length() - 1);
}
return str;
}
string removespace(string str)
{
int m = str.length();
int i=0;
while(i<m)
{
while(str[i] == 32)
str.erase(i,1);
i++;
}
}
string str = "2C F4 32 3C B9 DE";
str.erase(remove(str.begin(),str.end(),' '),str.end());
cout << str << endl;
output: 2CF4323CB9DE
I'm afraid it's the best solution that I can think of. But you can use reserve() to pre-allocate the minimum required memory in advance to speed up things a bit. You'll end up with a new string that will probably be shorter but that takes up the same amount of memory, but you'll avoid reallocations.
EDIT: Depending on your situation, this may incur less overhead than jumbling characters around.
You should try different approaches and see what is best for you: you might not have any performance issues at all.

Deleting spaces from the beginning of strings [duplicate]

How to remove spaces from a string object in C++.
For example, how to remove leading and trailing spaces from the below string object.
//Original string: " This is a sample string "
//Desired string: "This is a sample string"
The string class, as far as I know, doesn't provide any methods to remove leading and trailing spaces.
To add to the problem, how to extend this formatting to process extra spaces between words of the string. For example,
// Original string: " This is a sample string "
// Desired string: "This is a sample string"
Using the string methods mentioned in the solution, I can think of doing these operations in two steps.
Remove leading and trailing spaces.
Use find_first_of, find_last_of, find_first_not_of, find_last_not_of and substr, repeatedly at word boundaries to get desired formatting.
This is called trimming. If you can use Boost, I'd recommend it.
Otherwise, use find_first_not_of to get the index of the first non-whitespace character, then find_last_not_of to get the index from the end that isn't whitespace. With these, use substr to get the sub-string with no surrounding whitespace.
In response to your edit, I don't know the term but I'd guess something along the lines of "reduce", so that's what I called it. :) (Note, I've changed the white-space to be a parameter, for flexibility)
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
std::string trim(const std::string& str,
const std::string& whitespace = " \t")
{
const auto strBegin = str.find_first_not_of(whitespace);
if (strBegin == std::string::npos)
return ""; // no content
const auto strEnd = str.find_last_not_of(whitespace);
const auto strRange = strEnd - strBegin + 1;
return str.substr(strBegin, strRange);
}
std::string reduce(const std::string& str,
const std::string& fill = " ",
const std::string& whitespace = " \t")
{
// trim first
auto result = trim(str, whitespace);
// replace sub ranges
auto beginSpace = result.find_first_of(whitespace);
while (beginSpace != std::string::npos)
{
const auto endSpace = result.find_first_not_of(whitespace, beginSpace);
const auto range = endSpace - beginSpace;
result.replace(beginSpace, range, fill);
const auto newStart = beginSpace + fill.length();
beginSpace = result.find_first_of(whitespace, newStart);
}
return result;
}
int main(void)
{
const std::string foo = " too much\t \tspace\t\t\t ";
const std::string bar = "one\ntwo";
std::cout << "[" << trim(foo) << "]" << std::endl;
std::cout << "[" << reduce(foo) << "]" << std::endl;
std::cout << "[" << reduce(foo, "-") << "]" << std::endl;
std::cout << "[" << trim(bar) << "]" << std::endl;
}
Result:
[too much space]
[too much space]
[too-much-space]
[one
two]
Easy removing leading, trailing and extra spaces from a std::string in one line
value = std::regex_replace(value, std::regex("^ +| +$|( ) +"), "$1");
removing only leading spaces
value.erase(value.begin(), std::find_if(value.begin(), value.end(), std::bind1st(std::not_equal_to<char>(), ' ')));
or
value = std::regex_replace(value, std::regex("^ +"), "");
removing only trailing spaces
value.erase(std::find_if(value.rbegin(), value.rend(), std::bind1st(std::not_equal_to<char>(), ' ')).base(), value.end());
or
value = std::regex_replace(value, std::regex(" +$"), "");
removing only extra spaces
value = regex_replace(value, std::regex(" +"), " ");
I am currently using these functions:
// trim from left
inline std::string& ltrim(std::string& s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
s.erase(0, s.find_first_not_of(t));
return s;
}
// trim from right
inline std::string& rtrim(std::string& s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
s.erase(s.find_last_not_of(t) + 1);
return s;
}
// trim from left & right
inline std::string& trim(std::string& s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
return ltrim(rtrim(s, t), t);
}
// copying versions
inline std::string ltrim_copy(std::string s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
return ltrim(s, t);
}
inline std::string rtrim_copy(std::string s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
return rtrim(s, t);
}
inline std::string trim_copy(std::string s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
return trim(s, t);
}
Boost string trim algorithm
#include <boost/algorithm/string/trim.hpp>
[...]
std::string msg = " some text with spaces ";
boost::algorithm::trim(msg);
This is my solution for stripping the leading and trailing spaces ...
std::string stripString = " Plamen ";
while(!stripString.empty() && std::isspace(*stripString.begin()))
stripString.erase(stripString.begin());
while(!stripString.empty() && std::isspace(*stripString.rbegin()))
stripString.erase(stripString.length()-1);
The result is "Plamen"
Here is how you can do it:
std::string & trim(std::string & str)
{
return ltrim(rtrim(str));
}
And the supportive functions are implemeted as:
std::string & ltrim(std::string & str)
{
auto it2 = std::find_if( str.begin() , str.end() , [](char ch){ return !std::isspace<char>(ch , std::locale::classic() ) ; } );
str.erase( str.begin() , it2);
return str;
}
std::string & rtrim(std::string & str)
{
auto it1 = std::find_if( str.rbegin() , str.rend() , [](char ch){ return !std::isspace<char>(ch , std::locale::classic() ) ; } );
str.erase( it1.base() , str.end() );
return str;
}
And once you've all these in place, you can write this as well:
std::string trim_copy(std::string const & str)
{
auto s = str;
return ltrim(rtrim(s));
}
C++17 introduced std::basic_string_view, a class template that refers to a constant contiguous sequence of char-like objects, i.e. a view of the string. Apart from having a very similar interface to std::basic_string, it has two additional functions: remove_prefix(), which shrinks the view by moving its start forward; and
remove_suffix(), which shrinks the view by moving its end backward. These can be used to trim leading and trailing space:
#include <string_view>
#include <string>
std::string_view ltrim(std::string_view str)
{
const auto pos(str.find_first_not_of(" \t\n\r\f\v"));
str.remove_prefix(std::min(pos, str.length()));
return str;
}
std::string_view rtrim(std::string_view str)
{
const auto pos(str.find_last_not_of(" \t\n\r\f\v"));
str.remove_suffix(std::min(str.length() - pos - 1, str.length()));
return str;
}
std::string_view trim(std::string_view str)
{
str = ltrim(str);
str = rtrim(str);
return str;
}
int main()
{
std::string str = " hello world ";
auto sv1{ ltrim(str) }; // "hello world "
auto sv2{ rtrim(str) }; // " hello world"
auto sv3{ trim(str) }; // "hello world"
//If you want, you can create std::string objects from std::string_view objects
std::string s1{ sv1 };
std::string s2{ sv2 };
std::string s3{ sv3 };
}
Note: the use of std::min to ensure pos is not greater than size(), which happens when all characters in the string are whitespace and find_first_not_of returns npos. Also, std::string_view is a non-owning reference, so it's only valid as long as the original string still exists. Trimming the string view has no effect on the string it is based on.
Example for trim leading and trailing spaces following jon-hanson's suggestion to use boost (only removes trailing and pending spaces):
#include <boost/algorithm/string/trim.hpp>
std::string str = " t e s t ";
boost::algorithm::trim ( str );
Results in "t e s t"
There is also
trim_left results in "t e s t "
trim_right results in " t e s t"
/// strip a string, remove leading and trailing spaces
void strip(const string& in, string& out)
{
string::const_iterator b = in.begin(), e = in.end();
// skipping leading spaces
while (isSpace(*b)){
++b;
}
if (b != e){
// skipping trailing spaces
while (isSpace(*(e-1))){
--e;
}
}
out.assign(b, e);
}
In the above code, the isSpace() function is a boolean function that tells whether a character is a white space, you can implement this function to reflect your needs, or just call the isspace() from "ctype.h" if you want.
Example for trimming leading and trailing spaces
std::string aString(" This is a string to be trimmed ");
auto start = aString.find_first_not_of(' ');
auto end = aString.find_last_not_of(' ');
std::string trimmedString;
trimmedString = aString.substr(start, (end - start) + 1);
OR
trimmedSring = aString.substr(aString.find_first_not_of(' '), (aString.find_last_not_of(' ') - aString.find_first_not_of(' ')) + 1);
Using the standard library has many benefits, but one must be aware of some special cases that cause exceptions. For example, none of the answers covered the case where a C++ string has some Unicode characters. In this case, if you use the function isspace, an exception will be thrown.
I have been using the following code for trimming the strings and some other operations that might come in handy. The major benefits of this code are: it is really fast (faster than any code I have ever tested), it only uses the standard library, and it never causes an exception:
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
#include <functional>
#include <locale>
#include <iostream>
typedef unsigned char BYTE;
std::string strTrim(std::string s, char option = 0)
{
// convert all whitespace characters to a standard space
std::replace_if(s.begin(), s.end(), (std::function<int(BYTE)>)::isspace, ' ');
// remove leading and trailing spaces
size_t f = s.find_first_not_of(' ');
if (f == std::string::npos) return "";
s = s.substr(f, s.find_last_not_of(' ') - f + 1);
// remove consecutive spaces
s = std::string(s.begin(), std::unique(s.begin(), s.end(),
[](BYTE l, BYTE r){ return l == ' ' && r == ' '; }));
switch (option)
{
case 'l': // convert to lowercase
std::transform(s.begin(), s.end(), s.begin(), ::tolower);
return s;
case 'U': // convert to uppercase
std::transform(s.begin(), s.end(), s.begin(), ::toupper);
return s;
case 'n': // remove all spaces
s.erase(std::remove(s.begin(), s.end(), ' '), s.end());
return s;
default: // just trim
return s;
}
}
This might be the simplest of all.
You can use string::find and string::rfind to find whitespace from both sides and reduce the string.
void TrimWord(std::string& word)
{
if (word.empty()) return;
// Trim spaces from left side
while (word.find(" ") == 0)
{
word.erase(0, 1);
}
// Trim spaces from right side
size_t len = word.size();
while (word.rfind(" ") == --len)
{
word.erase(len, len + 1);
}
}
To add to the problem, how to extend this formatting to process extra spaces between words of the string.
Actually, this is a simpler case than accounting for multiple leading and trailing white-space characters. All you need to do is remove duplicate adjacent white-space characters from the entire string.
The predicate for adjacent white space would simply be:
auto by_space = [](unsigned char a, unsigned char b) {
return std::isspace(a) and std::isspace(b);
};
and then you can get rid of those duplicate adjacent white-space characters with std::unique, and the erase-remove idiom:
// s = " This is a sample string "
s.erase(std::unique(std::begin(s), std::end(s), by_space),
std::end(s));
// s = " This is a sample string "
This does potentially leave an extra white-space character at the front and/or the back. This can be removed quite easily:
if (std::size(s) && std::isspace(s.back()))
s.pop_back();
if (std::size(s) && std::isspace(s.front()))
s.erase(0, 1);
Here's a demo.
I've tested this, it all works. So this method processInput will just ask the user to type something in. it will return a string that has no extra spaces internally, nor extra spaces at the begining or the end. Hope this helps. (also put a heap of commenting in to make it simple to understand).
you can see how to implement it in the main() at the bottom
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
string processInput() {
char inputChar[256];
string output = "";
int outputLength = 0;
bool space = false;
// user inputs a string.. well a char array
cin.getline(inputChar,256);
output = inputChar;
string outputToLower = "";
// put characters to lower and reduce spaces
for(int i = 0; i < output.length(); i++){
// if it's caps put it to lowercase
output[i] = tolower(output[i]);
// make sure we do not include tabs or line returns or weird symbol for null entry array thingy
if (output[i] != '\t' && output[i] != '\n' && output[i] != 'Ì') {
if (space) {
// if the previous space was a space but this one is not, then space now is false and add char
if (output[i] != ' ') {
space = false;
// add the char
outputToLower+=output[i];
}
} else {
// if space is false, make it true if the char is a space
if (output[i] == ' ') {
space = true;
}
// add the char
outputToLower+=output[i];
}
}
}
// trim leading and tailing space
string trimmedOutput = "";
for(int i = 0; i < outputToLower.length(); i++){
// if it's the last character and it's not a space, then add it
// if it's the first character and it's not a space, then add it
// if it's not the first or the last then add it
if (i == outputToLower.length() - 1 && outputToLower[i] != ' ' ||
i == 0 && outputToLower[i] != ' ' ||
i > 0 && i < outputToLower.length() - 1) {
trimmedOutput += outputToLower[i];
}
}
// return
output = trimmedOutput;
return output;
}
int main() {
cout << "Username: ";
string userName = processInput();
cout << "\nModified Input = " << userName << endl;
}
Why complicate?
std::string removeSpaces(std::string x){
if(x[0] == ' ') { x.erase(0, 1); return removeSpaces(x); }
if(x[x.length() - 1] == ' ') { x.erase(x.length() - 1, x.length()); return removeSpaces(x); }
else return x;
}
This works even if boost was to fail, no regex, no weird stuff nor libraries.
EDIT:
Fix for M.M.'s comment.
No boost, no regex, just the string library. It's that simple.
string trim(const string& s) { // removes whitespace characters from beginnig and end of string s
const int l = (int)s.length();
int a=0, b=l-1;
char c;
while(a<l && ((c=s[a])==' '||c=='\t'||c=='\n'||c=='\v'||c=='\f'||c=='\r'||c=='\0')) a++;
while(b>a && ((c=s[b])==' '||c=='\t'||c=='\n'||c=='\v'||c=='\f'||c=='\r'||c=='\0')) b--;
return s.substr(a, 1+b-a);
}
The constant time and space complexity for removing leading and trailing spaces can be achieved by using pop_back() function in the string. Code looks as follows:
void trimTrailingSpaces(string& s) {
while (s.size() > 0 && s.back() == ' ') {
s.pop_back();
}
}
void trimSpaces(string& s) {
//trim trailing spaces.
trimTrailingSpaces(s);
//trim leading spaces
//To reduce complexity, reversing and removing trailing spaces
//and again reversing back
reverse(s.begin(), s.end());
trimTrailingSpaces(s);
reverse(s.begin(), s.end());
}
char *str = (char*) malloc(50 * sizeof(char));
strcpy(str, " some random string (<50 chars) ");
while(*str == ' ' || *str == '\t' || *str == '\n')
str++;
int len = strlen(str);
while(len >= 0 &&
(str[len - 1] == ' ' || str[len - 1] == '\t' || *str == '\n')
{
*(str + len - 1) = '\0';
len--;
}
printf(":%s:\n", str);
void removeSpaces(string& str)
{
/* remove multiple spaces */
int k=0;
for (int j=0; j<str.size(); ++j)
{
if ( (str[j] != ' ') || (str[j] == ' ' && str[j+1] != ' ' ))
{
str [k] = str [j];
++k;
}
}
str.resize(k);
/* remove space at the end */
if (str [k-1] == ' ')
str.erase(str.end()-1);
/* remove space at the begin */
if (str [0] == ' ')
str.erase(str.begin());
}
string trim(const string & sStr)
{
int nSize = sStr.size();
int nSPos = 0, nEPos = 1, i;
for(i = 0; i< nSize; ++i) {
if( !isspace( sStr[i] ) ) {
nSPos = i ;
break;
}
}
for(i = nSize -1 ; i >= 0 ; --i) {
if( !isspace( sStr[i] ) ) {
nEPos = i;
break;
}
}
return string(sStr, nSPos, nEPos - nSPos + 1);
}
For leading- and trailing spaces, how about:
string string_trim(const string& in) {
stringstream ss;
string out;
ss << in;
ss >> out;
return out;
}
Or for a sentence:
string trim_words(const string& sentence) {
stringstream ss;
ss << sentence;
string s;
string out;
while(ss >> s) {
out+=(s+' ');
}
return out.substr(0, out.length()-1);
}
neat and clean
void trimLeftTrailingSpaces(string &input) {
input.erase(input.begin(), find_if(input.begin(), input.end(), [](int ch) {
return !isspace(ch);
}));
}
void trimRightTrailingSpaces(string &input) {
input.erase(find_if(input.rbegin(), input.rend(), [](int ch) {
return !isspace(ch);
}).base(), input.end());
}
This was the most intuitive way for me to solve this problem:
/**
* #brief Reverses a string, a helper function to removeLeadingTrailingSpaces
*
* #param line
* #return std::string
*/
std::string reverseString (std::string line) {
std::string reverse_line = "";
for(int i = line.length() - 1; i > -1; i--) {
reverse_line += line[i];
}
return reverse_line;
}
/**
* #brief Removes leading and trailing whitespace
* as well as extra whitespace within the line
*
* #param line
* #return std::string
*/
std::string removeLeadingTrailingSpaces(std::string line) {
std::string filtered_line = "";
std::string curr_line = line;
for(int loop = 0; loop < 2; loop++) {
bool leading_spaces_exist = true;
filtered_line = "";
std::string prev_char = "";
for(int i = 0; i < line.length(); i++) {
// Ignores leading whitespace
if(leading_spaces_exist) {
if(curr_line[i] != ' ') {
leading_spaces_exist = false;
}
}
// Puts the rest of the line in a variable
// and ignore back-to-back whitespace
if(!leading_spaces_exist) {
if(!(curr_line[i] == ' ' && prev_char == " ")) {
filtered_line += curr_line[i];
}
prev_char = curr_line[i];
}
}
/*
Reverses the line so that after we remove the leading whitespace
the trailing whitespace becomes the leading whitespace.
After the second round, it needs to reverse the string back to
its regular order.
*/
curr_line = reverseString(filtered_line);
}
return curr_line;
}
Basically, I looped through the string and removed the leading whitespace, then flipped the string and repeated the same process, then flipped back to normal.
I also added the functionality of cleaning up the line if there were back-to-back spaces.
My Solution for this problem not using any STL methods but only C++ string's own methods is as following:
void processString(string &s) {
if ( s.empty() ) return;
//delete leading and trailing spaces of the input string
int notSpaceStartPos = 0, notSpaceEndPos = s.length() - 1;
while ( s[notSpaceStartPos] == ' ' ) ++notSpaceStartPos;
while ( s[notSpaceEndPos] == ' ' ) --notSpaceEndPos;
if ( notSpaceStartPos > notSpaceEndPos ) { s = ""; return; }
s = s.substr(notSpaceStartPos, notSpaceEndPos - notSpaceStartPos + 1);
//reduce multiple spaces between two words to a single space
string temp;
for ( int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++ ) {
if ( i > 0 && s[i] == ' ' && s[i-1] == ' ' ) continue;
temp.push_back(s[i]);
}
s = temp;
}
I have used this method to pass a LeetCode problem Reverse Words in a String
void TrimWhitespaces(std::wstring& str)
{
if (str.empty())
return;
const std::wstring& whitespace = L" \t";
std::wstring::size_type strBegin = str.find_first_not_of(whitespace);
std::wstring::size_type strEnd = str.find_last_not_of(whitespace);
if (strBegin != std::wstring::npos || strEnd != std::wstring::npos)
{
strBegin == std::wstring::npos ? 0 : strBegin;
strEnd == std::wstring::npos ? str.size() : 0;
const auto strRange = strEnd - strBegin + 1;
str.substr(strBegin, strRange).swap(str);
}
else if (str[0] == ' ' || str[0] == '\t') // handles non-empty spaces-only or tabs-only
{
str = L"";
}
}
void TrimWhitespacesTest()
{
std::wstring EmptyStr = L"";
std::wstring SpacesOnlyStr = L" ";
std::wstring TabsOnlyStr = L" ";
std::wstring RightSpacesStr = L"12345 ";
std::wstring LeftSpacesStr = L" 12345";
std::wstring NoSpacesStr = L"12345";
TrimWhitespaces(EmptyStr);
TrimWhitespaces(SpacesOnlyStr);
TrimWhitespaces(TabsOnlyStr);
TrimWhitespaces(RightSpacesStr);
TrimWhitespaces(LeftSpacesStr);
TrimWhitespaces(NoSpacesStr);
assert(EmptyStr == L"");
assert(SpacesOnlyStr == L"");
assert(TabsOnlyStr == L"");
assert(RightSpacesStr == L"12345");
assert(LeftSpacesStr == L"12345");
assert(NoSpacesStr == L"12345");
}
What about the erase-remove idiom?
std::string s("...");
s.erase( std::remove(s.begin(), s.end(), ' '), s.end() );
Sorry. I saw too late that you don't want to remove all whitespace.

Vector's of unsigned char iterators not working

I wanna to cut CRLF at end of the vector, but my code is not working (at first loop of while - equal is calling and returns false). In debug mode "i" == 0 and have "ptr" value == "0x002e4cfe"
string testS = "\r\n\r\n\r\n<-3 CRLF Testing trim new lines 3 CRLF->\r\n\r\n\r\n";
vector<uint8> _data; _data.clear();
_data.insert(_data.end(), testS.begin(), testS.end());
vector<uint8>::iterator i = _data.end();
uint32 bytesToCut = 0;
while(i != _data.begin()) {
if(equal(i - 1, i, "\r\n")) {
bytesToCut += 2;
--i; if(i == _data.begin()) return; else --i;
} else {
if(bytesToCut) _data.erase(_data.end() - bytesToCut, _data.end());
return;
}
}
Thanks a lot for your answers. But i need version with iterators, because my code is used when i parsing chunked http transfering data, which is writed to vector and i need func, which would take a pointer to a vector and iterator defining the position to remove CRLF backwards. And all my problems, i think, apparently enclosed in iterators.
Your code is invalid at least due to setting incorrect range in algorithm std::equal
if(equal(i - 1, i, "\r\n")) {
In this expression you compare only one element of the vector pointed by iterator i - 1 with '\r'. You have to write something as
if(equal(i - 2, i, "\r\n")) {
If you need to remove pairs "\r\n" from the vector then I can suggest the following approach (I used my own variable names and included testing output):
std::string s = "\r\n\r\n\r\n<-3 CRLF Testing trim new lines 3 CRLF->\r\n\r\n\r\n";
std::vector<unsigned char> v( s.begin(), s.end() );
std::cout << v.size() << std::endl;
auto last = v.end();
auto prev = v.end();
while ( prev != v.begin() && *--prev == '\n' && prev != v.begin() && *--prev == '\r' )
{
last = prev;
}
v.erase( last, v.end() );
std::cout << v.size() << std::endl;
instead if re inventing th wheel you can the existing STL algo with something like:
std::string s;
s = s.substr(0, s.find_last_not_of(" \r\n"));
If you need to just trim '\r' & '\n' from the end then simple substr will do:
std::string str = "\r\n\r\n\r\nSome string\r\n\r\n\r\n";
size_t newLength = str.length();
while (str[newLength - 1] == '\r' || str[newLength - 1] == '\n') newLength--;
str = str.substr(0, newLength);
std::cout << str;
Don't sweat small stuff :)
Removing all '\r' and '\n' could be simple as (C++03):
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
int main() {
std::string str = "\r\n\r\n\r\nSome string\r\n\r\n\r\n";
str.erase(std::remove(str.begin(), str.end(), '\r'), str.end());
str.erase(std::remove(str.begin(), str.end(), '\n'), str.end());
std::cout << str;
}
or:
bool isUnwantedChar(char c) {
return (c == '\r' || c == '\n');
}
int main() {
std::string str = "\r\n\r\n\r\nSome string\r\n\r\n\r\n";
str.erase(std::remove_if(str.begin(), str.end(), isUnwantedChar), str.end());
std::cout << str;
}
First of all, your vector initialization is ... non-optimal. All you needed to do is:
string testS = "\r\n\r\n\r\n<-3 CRLF Testing trim new lines 3 CRLF->\r\n\r\n\r\n";
vector<uint8> _data(testS.begin(), testS.end());
Second, if you wanted to remove the \r and \n characters, you could have done it in the string:
testS.erase(std::remove_if(testS.begin(), testS.end(), [](char c)
{
return c == '\r' || c == '\n';
}), testS.end());
If you wanted to do it in the vector, it is the same basic process:
_data.erase(std::remove_if(_data.begin(), _data.end(), [](uint8 ui)
{
return ui == static_cast<uint8>('\r') || ui == static_cast<uint8>('\n');
}), _data.end());
Your problem is likely due to the usage of invalidated iterators in your loop (that has several other logical issues, but since it shouldn't exist anyway, I won't touch on) that removes elements 1-by-1.
If you wanted to remove the items just from the end of the string/vector, it would be slightly different, but still the same basic pattern:
int start = testS.find_first_not_of("\r\n", 0); // finds the first non-\r\n character in the string
int end = testS.find_first_of("\r\n", start); // find the first \r\n character after real characters
// assuming neither start nor end are equal to std::string::npos - this should be checked
testS.erase(testS.begin() + end, testS.end()); // erase the `\r\n`s at the end of the string.
or alternatively (if \r\n can be in the middle of the string as well):
std::string::reverse_iterator rit = std::find_if_not(testS.rbegin(), testS.rend(), [](char c)
{
return c == '\r' || c == '\n';
});
testS.erase(rit.base(), testS.end());

Removing leading and trailing spaces from a string

How to remove spaces from a string object in C++.
For example, how to remove leading and trailing spaces from the below string object.
//Original string: " This is a sample string "
//Desired string: "This is a sample string"
The string class, as far as I know, doesn't provide any methods to remove leading and trailing spaces.
To add to the problem, how to extend this formatting to process extra spaces between words of the string. For example,
// Original string: " This is a sample string "
// Desired string: "This is a sample string"
Using the string methods mentioned in the solution, I can think of doing these operations in two steps.
Remove leading and trailing spaces.
Use find_first_of, find_last_of, find_first_not_of, find_last_not_of and substr, repeatedly at word boundaries to get desired formatting.
This is called trimming. If you can use Boost, I'd recommend it.
Otherwise, use find_first_not_of to get the index of the first non-whitespace character, then find_last_not_of to get the index from the end that isn't whitespace. With these, use substr to get the sub-string with no surrounding whitespace.
In response to your edit, I don't know the term but I'd guess something along the lines of "reduce", so that's what I called it. :) (Note, I've changed the white-space to be a parameter, for flexibility)
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
std::string trim(const std::string& str,
const std::string& whitespace = " \t")
{
const auto strBegin = str.find_first_not_of(whitespace);
if (strBegin == std::string::npos)
return ""; // no content
const auto strEnd = str.find_last_not_of(whitespace);
const auto strRange = strEnd - strBegin + 1;
return str.substr(strBegin, strRange);
}
std::string reduce(const std::string& str,
const std::string& fill = " ",
const std::string& whitespace = " \t")
{
// trim first
auto result = trim(str, whitespace);
// replace sub ranges
auto beginSpace = result.find_first_of(whitespace);
while (beginSpace != std::string::npos)
{
const auto endSpace = result.find_first_not_of(whitespace, beginSpace);
const auto range = endSpace - beginSpace;
result.replace(beginSpace, range, fill);
const auto newStart = beginSpace + fill.length();
beginSpace = result.find_first_of(whitespace, newStart);
}
return result;
}
int main(void)
{
const std::string foo = " too much\t \tspace\t\t\t ";
const std::string bar = "one\ntwo";
std::cout << "[" << trim(foo) << "]" << std::endl;
std::cout << "[" << reduce(foo) << "]" << std::endl;
std::cout << "[" << reduce(foo, "-") << "]" << std::endl;
std::cout << "[" << trim(bar) << "]" << std::endl;
}
Result:
[too much space]
[too much space]
[too-much-space]
[one
two]
Easy removing leading, trailing and extra spaces from a std::string in one line
value = std::regex_replace(value, std::regex("^ +| +$|( ) +"), "$1");
removing only leading spaces
value.erase(value.begin(), std::find_if(value.begin(), value.end(), std::bind1st(std::not_equal_to<char>(), ' ')));
or
value = std::regex_replace(value, std::regex("^ +"), "");
removing only trailing spaces
value.erase(std::find_if(value.rbegin(), value.rend(), std::bind1st(std::not_equal_to<char>(), ' ')).base(), value.end());
or
value = std::regex_replace(value, std::regex(" +$"), "");
removing only extra spaces
value = regex_replace(value, std::regex(" +"), " ");
I am currently using these functions:
// trim from left
inline std::string& ltrim(std::string& s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
s.erase(0, s.find_first_not_of(t));
return s;
}
// trim from right
inline std::string& rtrim(std::string& s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
s.erase(s.find_last_not_of(t) + 1);
return s;
}
// trim from left & right
inline std::string& trim(std::string& s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
return ltrim(rtrim(s, t), t);
}
// copying versions
inline std::string ltrim_copy(std::string s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
return ltrim(s, t);
}
inline std::string rtrim_copy(std::string s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
return rtrim(s, t);
}
inline std::string trim_copy(std::string s, const char* t = " \t\n\r\f\v")
{
return trim(s, t);
}
Boost string trim algorithm
#include <boost/algorithm/string/trim.hpp>
[...]
std::string msg = " some text with spaces ";
boost::algorithm::trim(msg);
This is my solution for stripping the leading and trailing spaces ...
std::string stripString = " Plamen ";
while(!stripString.empty() && std::isspace(*stripString.begin()))
stripString.erase(stripString.begin());
while(!stripString.empty() && std::isspace(*stripString.rbegin()))
stripString.erase(stripString.length()-1);
The result is "Plamen"
Here is how you can do it:
std::string & trim(std::string & str)
{
return ltrim(rtrim(str));
}
And the supportive functions are implemeted as:
std::string & ltrim(std::string & str)
{
auto it2 = std::find_if( str.begin() , str.end() , [](char ch){ return !std::isspace<char>(ch , std::locale::classic() ) ; } );
str.erase( str.begin() , it2);
return str;
}
std::string & rtrim(std::string & str)
{
auto it1 = std::find_if( str.rbegin() , str.rend() , [](char ch){ return !std::isspace<char>(ch , std::locale::classic() ) ; } );
str.erase( it1.base() , str.end() );
return str;
}
And once you've all these in place, you can write this as well:
std::string trim_copy(std::string const & str)
{
auto s = str;
return ltrim(rtrim(s));
}
C++17 introduced std::basic_string_view, a class template that refers to a constant contiguous sequence of char-like objects, i.e. a view of the string. Apart from having a very similar interface to std::basic_string, it has two additional functions: remove_prefix(), which shrinks the view by moving its start forward; and
remove_suffix(), which shrinks the view by moving its end backward. These can be used to trim leading and trailing space:
#include <string_view>
#include <string>
std::string_view ltrim(std::string_view str)
{
const auto pos(str.find_first_not_of(" \t\n\r\f\v"));
str.remove_prefix(std::min(pos, str.length()));
return str;
}
std::string_view rtrim(std::string_view str)
{
const auto pos(str.find_last_not_of(" \t\n\r\f\v"));
str.remove_suffix(std::min(str.length() - pos - 1, str.length()));
return str;
}
std::string_view trim(std::string_view str)
{
str = ltrim(str);
str = rtrim(str);
return str;
}
int main()
{
std::string str = " hello world ";
auto sv1{ ltrim(str) }; // "hello world "
auto sv2{ rtrim(str) }; // " hello world"
auto sv3{ trim(str) }; // "hello world"
//If you want, you can create std::string objects from std::string_view objects
std::string s1{ sv1 };
std::string s2{ sv2 };
std::string s3{ sv3 };
}
Note: the use of std::min to ensure pos is not greater than size(), which happens when all characters in the string are whitespace and find_first_not_of returns npos. Also, std::string_view is a non-owning reference, so it's only valid as long as the original string still exists. Trimming the string view has no effect on the string it is based on.
Example for trim leading and trailing spaces following jon-hanson's suggestion to use boost (only removes trailing and pending spaces):
#include <boost/algorithm/string/trim.hpp>
std::string str = " t e s t ";
boost::algorithm::trim ( str );
Results in "t e s t"
There is also
trim_left results in "t e s t "
trim_right results in " t e s t"
/// strip a string, remove leading and trailing spaces
void strip(const string& in, string& out)
{
string::const_iterator b = in.begin(), e = in.end();
// skipping leading spaces
while (isSpace(*b)){
++b;
}
if (b != e){
// skipping trailing spaces
while (isSpace(*(e-1))){
--e;
}
}
out.assign(b, e);
}
In the above code, the isSpace() function is a boolean function that tells whether a character is a white space, you can implement this function to reflect your needs, or just call the isspace() from "ctype.h" if you want.
Example for trimming leading and trailing spaces
std::string aString(" This is a string to be trimmed ");
auto start = aString.find_first_not_of(' ');
auto end = aString.find_last_not_of(' ');
std::string trimmedString;
trimmedString = aString.substr(start, (end - start) + 1);
OR
trimmedSring = aString.substr(aString.find_first_not_of(' '), (aString.find_last_not_of(' ') - aString.find_first_not_of(' ')) + 1);
Using the standard library has many benefits, but one must be aware of some special cases that cause exceptions. For example, none of the answers covered the case where a C++ string has some Unicode characters. In this case, if you use the function isspace, an exception will be thrown.
I have been using the following code for trimming the strings and some other operations that might come in handy. The major benefits of this code are: it is really fast (faster than any code I have ever tested), it only uses the standard library, and it never causes an exception:
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
#include <functional>
#include <locale>
#include <iostream>
typedef unsigned char BYTE;
std::string strTrim(std::string s, char option = 0)
{
// convert all whitespace characters to a standard space
std::replace_if(s.begin(), s.end(), (std::function<int(BYTE)>)::isspace, ' ');
// remove leading and trailing spaces
size_t f = s.find_first_not_of(' ');
if (f == std::string::npos) return "";
s = s.substr(f, s.find_last_not_of(' ') - f + 1);
// remove consecutive spaces
s = std::string(s.begin(), std::unique(s.begin(), s.end(),
[](BYTE l, BYTE r){ return l == ' ' && r == ' '; }));
switch (option)
{
case 'l': // convert to lowercase
std::transform(s.begin(), s.end(), s.begin(), ::tolower);
return s;
case 'U': // convert to uppercase
std::transform(s.begin(), s.end(), s.begin(), ::toupper);
return s;
case 'n': // remove all spaces
s.erase(std::remove(s.begin(), s.end(), ' '), s.end());
return s;
default: // just trim
return s;
}
}
This might be the simplest of all.
You can use string::find and string::rfind to find whitespace from both sides and reduce the string.
void TrimWord(std::string& word)
{
if (word.empty()) return;
// Trim spaces from left side
while (word.find(" ") == 0)
{
word.erase(0, 1);
}
// Trim spaces from right side
size_t len = word.size();
while (word.rfind(" ") == --len)
{
word.erase(len, len + 1);
}
}
To add to the problem, how to extend this formatting to process extra spaces between words of the string.
Actually, this is a simpler case than accounting for multiple leading and trailing white-space characters. All you need to do is remove duplicate adjacent white-space characters from the entire string.
The predicate for adjacent white space would simply be:
auto by_space = [](unsigned char a, unsigned char b) {
return std::isspace(a) and std::isspace(b);
};
and then you can get rid of those duplicate adjacent white-space characters with std::unique, and the erase-remove idiom:
// s = " This is a sample string "
s.erase(std::unique(std::begin(s), std::end(s), by_space),
std::end(s));
// s = " This is a sample string "
This does potentially leave an extra white-space character at the front and/or the back. This can be removed quite easily:
if (std::size(s) && std::isspace(s.back()))
s.pop_back();
if (std::size(s) && std::isspace(s.front()))
s.erase(0, 1);
Here's a demo.
I've tested this, it all works. So this method processInput will just ask the user to type something in. it will return a string that has no extra spaces internally, nor extra spaces at the begining or the end. Hope this helps. (also put a heap of commenting in to make it simple to understand).
you can see how to implement it in the main() at the bottom
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
string processInput() {
char inputChar[256];
string output = "";
int outputLength = 0;
bool space = false;
// user inputs a string.. well a char array
cin.getline(inputChar,256);
output = inputChar;
string outputToLower = "";
// put characters to lower and reduce spaces
for(int i = 0; i < output.length(); i++){
// if it's caps put it to lowercase
output[i] = tolower(output[i]);
// make sure we do not include tabs or line returns or weird symbol for null entry array thingy
if (output[i] != '\t' && output[i] != '\n' && output[i] != 'Ì') {
if (space) {
// if the previous space was a space but this one is not, then space now is false and add char
if (output[i] != ' ') {
space = false;
// add the char
outputToLower+=output[i];
}
} else {
// if space is false, make it true if the char is a space
if (output[i] == ' ') {
space = true;
}
// add the char
outputToLower+=output[i];
}
}
}
// trim leading and tailing space
string trimmedOutput = "";
for(int i = 0; i < outputToLower.length(); i++){
// if it's the last character and it's not a space, then add it
// if it's the first character and it's not a space, then add it
// if it's not the first or the last then add it
if (i == outputToLower.length() - 1 && outputToLower[i] != ' ' ||
i == 0 && outputToLower[i] != ' ' ||
i > 0 && i < outputToLower.length() - 1) {
trimmedOutput += outputToLower[i];
}
}
// return
output = trimmedOutput;
return output;
}
int main() {
cout << "Username: ";
string userName = processInput();
cout << "\nModified Input = " << userName << endl;
}
Why complicate?
std::string removeSpaces(std::string x){
if(x[0] == ' ') { x.erase(0, 1); return removeSpaces(x); }
if(x[x.length() - 1] == ' ') { x.erase(x.length() - 1, x.length()); return removeSpaces(x); }
else return x;
}
This works even if boost was to fail, no regex, no weird stuff nor libraries.
EDIT:
Fix for M.M.'s comment.
No boost, no regex, just the string library. It's that simple.
string trim(const string& s) { // removes whitespace characters from beginnig and end of string s
const int l = (int)s.length();
int a=0, b=l-1;
char c;
while(a<l && ((c=s[a])==' '||c=='\t'||c=='\n'||c=='\v'||c=='\f'||c=='\r'||c=='\0')) a++;
while(b>a && ((c=s[b])==' '||c=='\t'||c=='\n'||c=='\v'||c=='\f'||c=='\r'||c=='\0')) b--;
return s.substr(a, 1+b-a);
}
The constant time and space complexity for removing leading and trailing spaces can be achieved by using pop_back() function in the string. Code looks as follows:
void trimTrailingSpaces(string& s) {
while (s.size() > 0 && s.back() == ' ') {
s.pop_back();
}
}
void trimSpaces(string& s) {
//trim trailing spaces.
trimTrailingSpaces(s);
//trim leading spaces
//To reduce complexity, reversing and removing trailing spaces
//and again reversing back
reverse(s.begin(), s.end());
trimTrailingSpaces(s);
reverse(s.begin(), s.end());
}
char *str = (char*) malloc(50 * sizeof(char));
strcpy(str, " some random string (<50 chars) ");
while(*str == ' ' || *str == '\t' || *str == '\n')
str++;
int len = strlen(str);
while(len >= 0 &&
(str[len - 1] == ' ' || str[len - 1] == '\t' || *str == '\n')
{
*(str + len - 1) = '\0';
len--;
}
printf(":%s:\n", str);
void removeSpaces(string& str)
{
/* remove multiple spaces */
int k=0;
for (int j=0; j<str.size(); ++j)
{
if ( (str[j] != ' ') || (str[j] == ' ' && str[j+1] != ' ' ))
{
str [k] = str [j];
++k;
}
}
str.resize(k);
/* remove space at the end */
if (str [k-1] == ' ')
str.erase(str.end()-1);
/* remove space at the begin */
if (str [0] == ' ')
str.erase(str.begin());
}
string trim(const string & sStr)
{
int nSize = sStr.size();
int nSPos = 0, nEPos = 1, i;
for(i = 0; i< nSize; ++i) {
if( !isspace( sStr[i] ) ) {
nSPos = i ;
break;
}
}
for(i = nSize -1 ; i >= 0 ; --i) {
if( !isspace( sStr[i] ) ) {
nEPos = i;
break;
}
}
return string(sStr, nSPos, nEPos - nSPos + 1);
}
For leading- and trailing spaces, how about:
string string_trim(const string& in) {
stringstream ss;
string out;
ss << in;
ss >> out;
return out;
}
Or for a sentence:
string trim_words(const string& sentence) {
stringstream ss;
ss << sentence;
string s;
string out;
while(ss >> s) {
out+=(s+' ');
}
return out.substr(0, out.length()-1);
}
neat and clean
void trimLeftTrailingSpaces(string &input) {
input.erase(input.begin(), find_if(input.begin(), input.end(), [](int ch) {
return !isspace(ch);
}));
}
void trimRightTrailingSpaces(string &input) {
input.erase(find_if(input.rbegin(), input.rend(), [](int ch) {
return !isspace(ch);
}).base(), input.end());
}
This was the most intuitive way for me to solve this problem:
/**
* #brief Reverses a string, a helper function to removeLeadingTrailingSpaces
*
* #param line
* #return std::string
*/
std::string reverseString (std::string line) {
std::string reverse_line = "";
for(int i = line.length() - 1; i > -1; i--) {
reverse_line += line[i];
}
return reverse_line;
}
/**
* #brief Removes leading and trailing whitespace
* as well as extra whitespace within the line
*
* #param line
* #return std::string
*/
std::string removeLeadingTrailingSpaces(std::string line) {
std::string filtered_line = "";
std::string curr_line = line;
for(int loop = 0; loop < 2; loop++) {
bool leading_spaces_exist = true;
filtered_line = "";
std::string prev_char = "";
for(int i = 0; i < line.length(); i++) {
// Ignores leading whitespace
if(leading_spaces_exist) {
if(curr_line[i] != ' ') {
leading_spaces_exist = false;
}
}
// Puts the rest of the line in a variable
// and ignore back-to-back whitespace
if(!leading_spaces_exist) {
if(!(curr_line[i] == ' ' && prev_char == " ")) {
filtered_line += curr_line[i];
}
prev_char = curr_line[i];
}
}
/*
Reverses the line so that after we remove the leading whitespace
the trailing whitespace becomes the leading whitespace.
After the second round, it needs to reverse the string back to
its regular order.
*/
curr_line = reverseString(filtered_line);
}
return curr_line;
}
Basically, I looped through the string and removed the leading whitespace, then flipped the string and repeated the same process, then flipped back to normal.
I also added the functionality of cleaning up the line if there were back-to-back spaces.
My Solution for this problem not using any STL methods but only C++ string's own methods is as following:
void processString(string &s) {
if ( s.empty() ) return;
//delete leading and trailing spaces of the input string
int notSpaceStartPos = 0, notSpaceEndPos = s.length() - 1;
while ( s[notSpaceStartPos] == ' ' ) ++notSpaceStartPos;
while ( s[notSpaceEndPos] == ' ' ) --notSpaceEndPos;
if ( notSpaceStartPos > notSpaceEndPos ) { s = ""; return; }
s = s.substr(notSpaceStartPos, notSpaceEndPos - notSpaceStartPos + 1);
//reduce multiple spaces between two words to a single space
string temp;
for ( int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++ ) {
if ( i > 0 && s[i] == ' ' && s[i-1] == ' ' ) continue;
temp.push_back(s[i]);
}
s = temp;
}
I have used this method to pass a LeetCode problem Reverse Words in a String
void TrimWhitespaces(std::wstring& str)
{
if (str.empty())
return;
const std::wstring& whitespace = L" \t";
std::wstring::size_type strBegin = str.find_first_not_of(whitespace);
std::wstring::size_type strEnd = str.find_last_not_of(whitespace);
if (strBegin != std::wstring::npos || strEnd != std::wstring::npos)
{
strBegin == std::wstring::npos ? 0 : strBegin;
strEnd == std::wstring::npos ? str.size() : 0;
const auto strRange = strEnd - strBegin + 1;
str.substr(strBegin, strRange).swap(str);
}
else if (str[0] == ' ' || str[0] == '\t') // handles non-empty spaces-only or tabs-only
{
str = L"";
}
}
void TrimWhitespacesTest()
{
std::wstring EmptyStr = L"";
std::wstring SpacesOnlyStr = L" ";
std::wstring TabsOnlyStr = L" ";
std::wstring RightSpacesStr = L"12345 ";
std::wstring LeftSpacesStr = L" 12345";
std::wstring NoSpacesStr = L"12345";
TrimWhitespaces(EmptyStr);
TrimWhitespaces(SpacesOnlyStr);
TrimWhitespaces(TabsOnlyStr);
TrimWhitespaces(RightSpacesStr);
TrimWhitespaces(LeftSpacesStr);
TrimWhitespaces(NoSpacesStr);
assert(EmptyStr == L"");
assert(SpacesOnlyStr == L"");
assert(TabsOnlyStr == L"");
assert(RightSpacesStr == L"12345");
assert(LeftSpacesStr == L"12345");
assert(NoSpacesStr == L"12345");
}
What about the erase-remove idiom?
std::string s("...");
s.erase( std::remove(s.begin(), s.end(), ' '), s.end() );
Sorry. I saw too late that you don't want to remove all whitespace.

Remove spaces from std::string in C++

What is the preferred way to remove spaces from a string in C++? I could loop through all the characters and build a new string, but is there a better way?
The best thing to do is to use the algorithm remove_if and isspace:
remove_if(str.begin(), str.end(), isspace);
Now the algorithm itself can't change the container(only modify the values), so it actually shuffles the values around and returns a pointer to where the end now should be. So we have to call string::erase to actually modify the length of the container:
str.erase(remove_if(str.begin(), str.end(), isspace), str.end());
We should also note that remove_if will make at most one copy of the data. Here is a sample implementation:
template<typename T, typename P>
T remove_if(T beg, T end, P pred)
{
T dest = beg;
for (T itr = beg;itr != end; ++itr)
if (!pred(*itr))
*(dest++) = *itr;
return dest;
}
std::string::iterator end_pos = std::remove(str.begin(), str.end(), ' ');
str.erase(end_pos, str.end());
From gamedev
string.erase(std::remove_if(string.begin(), string.end(), std::isspace), string.end());
Can you use Boost String Algo? http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/doc/html/string_algo/usage.html#id1290573
erase_all(str, " ");
You can use this solution for removing a char:
#include <algorithm>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
str.erase(remove(str.begin(), str.end(), char_to_remove), str.end());
For trimming, use boost string algorithms:
#include <boost/algorithm/string.hpp>
using namespace std;
using namespace boost;
// ...
string str1(" hello world! ");
trim(str1); // str1 == "hello world!"
Hi, you can do something like that. This function deletes all spaces.
string delSpaces(string &str)
{
str.erase(std::remove(str.begin(), str.end(), ' '), str.end());
return str;
}
I made another function, that deletes all unnecessary spaces.
string delUnnecessary(string &str)
{
int size = str.length();
for(int j = 0; j<=size; j++)
{
for(int i = 0; i <=j; i++)
{
if(str[i] == ' ' && str[i+1] == ' ')
{
str.erase(str.begin() + i);
}
else if(str[0]== ' ')
{
str.erase(str.begin());
}
else if(str[i] == '\0' && str[i-1]== ' ')
{
str.erase(str.end() - 1);
}
}
}
return str;
}
If you want to do this with an easy macro, here's one:
#define REMOVE_SPACES(x) x.erase(std::remove(x.begin(), x.end(), ' '), x.end())
This assumes you have done #include <string> of course.
Call it like so:
std::string sName = " Example Name ";
REMOVE_SPACES(sName);
printf("%s",sName.c_str()); // requires #include <stdio.h>
string replaceinString(std::string str, std::string tofind, std::string toreplace)
{
size_t position = 0;
for ( position = str.find(tofind); position != std::string::npos; position = str.find(tofind,position) )
{
str.replace(position ,1, toreplace);
}
return(str);
}
use it:
string replace = replaceinString(thisstring, " ", "%20");
string replace2 = replaceinString(thisstring, " ", "-");
string replace3 = replaceinString(thisstring, " ", "+");
In C++20 you can use free function std::erase
std::string str = " Hello World !";
std::erase(str, ' ');
Full example:
#include<string>
#include<iostream>
int main() {
std::string str = " Hello World !";
std::erase(str, ' ');
std::cout << "|" << str <<"|";
}
I print | so that it is obvious that space at the begining is also removed.
note: this removes only the space, not every other possible character that may be considered whitespace, see https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/string/byte/isspace
#include <algorithm>
using namespace std;
int main() {
.
.
s.erase( remove( s.begin(), s.end(), ' ' ), s.end() );
.
.
}
Source:
Reference taken from this forum.
Removes all whitespace characters such as tabs and line breaks (C++11):
string str = " \n AB cd \t efg\v\n";
str = regex_replace(str,regex("\\s"),"");
I used the below work around for long - not sure about its complexity.
s.erase(std::unique(s.begin(),s.end(),[](char s,char f){return (f==' '||s==' ');}),s.end());
when you wanna remove character ' ' and some for example - use
s.erase(std::unique(s.begin(),s.end(),[](char s,char f){return ((f==' '||s==' ')||(f=='-'||s=='-'));}),s.end());
likewise just increase the || if number of characters you wanna remove is not 1
but as mentioned by others the erase remove idiom also seems fine.
string removeSpaces(string word) {
string newWord;
for (int i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) {
if (word[i] != ' ') {
newWord += word[i];
}
}
return newWord;
}
This code basically takes a string and iterates through every character in it. It then checks whether that string is a white space, if it isn't then the character is added to a new string.
Just for fun, as other answers are much better than this.
#include <boost/hana/functional/partial.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <range/v3/range/conversion.hpp>
#include <range/v3/view/filter.hpp>
int main() {
using ranges::to;
using ranges::views::filter;
using boost::hana::partial;
auto const& not_space = partial(std::not_equal_to<>{}, ' ');
auto const& to_string = to<std::string>;
std::string input = "2C F4 32 3C B9 DE";
std::string output = input | filter(not_space) | to_string;
assert(output == "2CF4323CB9DE");
}
I created a function, that removes the white spaces from the either ends of string. Such as
" Hello World ", will be converted into "Hello world".
This works similar to strip, lstrip and rstrip functions, which are frequently used in python.
string strip(string str) {
while (str[str.length() - 1] == ' ') {
str = str.substr(0, str.length() - 1);
}
while (str[0] == ' ') {
str = str.substr(1, str.length() - 1);
}
return str;
}
string lstrip(string str) {
while (str[0] == ' ') {
str = str.substr(1, str.length() - 1);
}
return str;
}
string rstrip(string str) {
while (str[str.length() - 1] == ' ') {
str = str.substr(0, str.length() - 1);
}
return str;
}
string removespace(string str)
{
int m = str.length();
int i=0;
while(i<m)
{
while(str[i] == 32)
str.erase(i,1);
i++;
}
}
string str = "2C F4 32 3C B9 DE";
str.erase(remove(str.begin(),str.end(),' '),str.end());
cout << str << endl;
output: 2CF4323CB9DE
I'm afraid it's the best solution that I can think of. But you can use reserve() to pre-allocate the minimum required memory in advance to speed up things a bit. You'll end up with a new string that will probably be shorter but that takes up the same amount of memory, but you'll avoid reallocations.
EDIT: Depending on your situation, this may incur less overhead than jumbling characters around.
You should try different approaches and see what is best for you: you might not have any performance issues at all.