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Remove space before punctuation in Java

I have a line

"This is a big sentence . ! ? ! but I have to remove the space ."

In this sentence, I want to remove all spaces before punctuation and become

 "This is a big sentence.!?! but I have to remove the space."

I am trying to use "\p{Punct}" but cannot replace it in a string.

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3 answers

You should use a positive forecast :

 newStr = str.replaceAll("\\s+(?=\\p{Punct})", "")

ideone.com for your specific string

Expression gap:

  • \s : empty space ...
  • (?=\\p{Punct}) ... followed by punctuation.
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Try this regular expression to find all the spaces before the punctuation: \s+(?=\p{Punct}) (Java String: "\\s+(?=\\p{Punct})" )

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You can use the group and refer to it in the replacement line:

 String text = "This is a big sentence . ! ? ! but I have to remove the space ."; String replaced = text.replaceAll("\\s+(\\p{Punct})", "$1")

Here we fix the punctuation in the group with (\\p{Punct}) and replace the entire matched string with the group (named $1 ).

Anyway, my answer is just curiosity: I think @aioobe's answer is better :)

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