Text Processing with JavaScript

Recipe 63

Replacing Duplicate Whitespaces with the Same Type

Task

Imagine that your whitespace removal script is effective for paragraphs and headings, but you come across posts that have redundant tabs before certain list items, like this:

My list:
                1. Item one
        2. Item two
        3. Item three

If you implement the solution in the preceding recipe, the repeated tab characters will be replaced with a single space character, resulting in an inconsistent appearance of the items in the list:

My list:
 1. Item one
        2. Item two
        3. Item three

You need a solution that replaces repeated whitespaces with the same type of whitespace.

Solution

Capture the repeated whitespace with a capturing group and reference it with $1:

part_3/removing_dup_whitespaces_same_type/removing_dup_whitespaces_ex1.js ...