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I have a section that may, or may not, include a whitespace. Like
this:

var string = "<b><p>Jason</p> </b>";

I'm wanting to do this:

string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p> <\/b>/gi, "Jason");

But the problem is that the whitespace between </p> and </b> might NOT
exist. I'm doing it like this, but I know that it's wrong because it
would find anything, not just a whitespace:

string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p>(.*)<\/b>/gi, "Jason");

I'm pretty sure that this isn't right, but it's the direction I was
going:

string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p>(\s*|(.)*?)<\/b>/gi,
"Jason");


What's the correct way to match a whitespace, or nothing?

jwcarlton wrote:
> I have a section that may, or may not, include a whitespace. Like
> this:
>
> var string = "<b><p>Jason</p> </b>";
>
> I'm wanting to do this:
>
> string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p> <\/b>/gi, "Jason");
>
> But the problem is that the whitespace between</p> and</b> might NOT
> exist. I'm doing it like this, but I know that it's wrong because it
> would find anything, not just a whitespace:
>
> string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p>(.*)<\/b>/gi, "Jason");
>
> I'm pretty sure that this isn't right, but it's the direction I was
> going:
>
> string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p>(\s*|(.)*?)<\/b>/gi,
> "Jason");
>
>
> What's the correct way to match a whitespace, or nothing?

Well if you expect a single space or no space then use
/<b><p>jason<\/p> ?<\/b>/gi
or if you expect any white space then use
/<b><p>jason<\/p>\s*<\/b>/gi
But as one of your samples already uses \s I am not sure I understand
what problem you face.


--

Martin Honnen
http://msmvps.com/blogs/martin_honnen/