[vb.net] Remove spaces from a string in VB.NET

How do you remove spaces from a string in VB.NET?

"Spaces" in the original post could refer to whitespace, and no answer yet shows how to remove ALL whitespace from a string. For that regular expressions are the most flexible approach I've found.

Below is a console application where you can see the difference between replacing just spaces or all whitespace.

You can find more about .NET regular expressions at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hs600312.aspx and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/az24scfc.aspx

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions
Module TestRegExp
    Sub Main()
        ' Use to match all whitespace (note the lowercase s matters)
        Dim regWhitespace As New Regex("\s")

        ' Use to match space characters only
        Dim regSpace As New Regex(" ")

        Dim testString As String = "First Line" + vbCrLf + _
        "Second line followed by 2 tabs" + vbTab + vbTab + _
        "End of tabs"

        Console.WriteLine("Test string :")
        Console.WriteLine(testString)

        Console.WriteLine("Replace all whitespace :")
        ' This prints the string on one line with no spacing at all
        Console.WriteLine(regWhitespace.Replace(testString, String.Empty))

        Console.WriteLine("Replace all spaces :")
        ' This removes spaces, but retains the tabs and new lines
        Console.WriteLine(regSpace.Replace(testString, String.Empty))

        Console.WriteLine("Press any key to finish")
        Console.ReadKey()
    End Sub
End Module

Try this code for to trim a String

Public Function AllTrim(ByVal GeVar As String) As String
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim e As Integer
    Dim NewStr As String = ""
    e = Len(GeVar)
    For i = 1 To e
        If Mid(GeVar, i, 1) <> " " Then
            NewStr = NewStr + Mid(GeVar, i, 1)
        End If
    Next i
    AllTrim = NewStr
    ' MsgBox("alltrim = " & NewStr)
End Function

To trim a string down so it does not contain two or more spaces in a row. Every instance of 2 or more space will be trimmed down to 1 space. A simple solution:

While ImageText1.Contains("  ")                     '2 spaces.
    ImageText1 = ImageText1.Replace("  ", " ")      'Replace with 1 space.
End While

This will remove spaces only, matches the SQL functionality of rtrim(ltrim(myString))

Dim charstotrim() As Char = {" "c}
myString = myString .Trim(charstotrim) 

What about Regex.Replace solution?

myStr = Regex.Replace(myStr, "\s", "")

To remove ALL spaces:

 myString = myString.Replace(" ", "")

To remove leading and trailing spaces:

myString = myString.Trim()

Note: this removes any white space, so newlines, tabs, etc. would be removed.

You can also use a small function that will loop through and remove any spaces.

This is very clean and simple.

Public Shared Function RemoveXtraSpaces(strVal As String) As String
     Dim iCount As Integer = 1
     Dim sTempstrVal As String

     sTempstrVal = ""

     For iCount = 1 To Len(strVal)
        sTempstrVal = sTempstrVal + Mid(strVal, iCount, 1).Trim
     Next

     RemoveXtraSpaces = sTempstrVal

     Return RemoveXtraSpaces

End Function