How to eliminate ALL line breaks in string?

Question

I have a need to get rid of all line breaks that appear in my strings (coming from db). I do it using code below:

value.Replace("\r\n", "").Replace("\n", "").Replace("\r", "")

I can see that there's at least one character acting like line ending that survived it. The char code is 8232.

It's very lame of me, but I must say this is the first time I have a pleasure of seeing this char. It's obvious that I can just replace this char directly, but I was thinking about extending my current approach (based on replacing combinations of "\r" and "\n") to something much more solid, so it would not only include the '8232' char but also all others not-found-by-me yet.

Do you have a bullet-proof approach for such a problem?

EDIT#1:

It seems to me that there are several possible solutions:

use Regex.Replace
remove all chars if it's IsSeparator or IsControl
replace with " " if it's IsWhiteSpace
create a list of all possible line endings ( "\r\n", "\r", "\n",LF ,VT, FF, CR, CR+LF, NEL, LS, PS) and just replace them with empty string. It's a lot of replaces.

I would say that the best results will be after applying 1st and 4th approaches but I cannot decide which will be faster. Which one do you think is the most complete one?

EDIT#2

I posted anwer below.

For what it's worth, the character you're running into is U+2028, 'LINE SEPARATOR'. fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2028/index.htm — Joe White
– Joe White, Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 15:57
I have deleted my answer but what about the following:stackoverflow.com/questions/238002/… — Massimiliano Peluso
– Massimiliano Peluso, Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 16:02
It just asks about line breaks, not about special cases of them. In the context of this old question, the answer is correct, because the OP obviously doesn't care about such special cases, otherwise he would have mentioned them. — Daniel Hilgarth
– Daniel Hilgarth, Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 16:03
thanks for the explanation I have never got -3 in less than 1 minute. is there a badge for that? :-))) — Massimiliano Peluso
– Massimiliano Peluso, Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 16:04

MadDeveloper · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-23 15:08:09Z

75

Below is the extension method solving my problem. LineSeparator and ParagraphEnding can be of course defined somewhere else, as static values etc.

public static string RemoveLineEndings(this string value)
{
    if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
    {
        return value;
    }
    string lineSeparator = ((char) 0x2028).ToString();
    string paragraphSeparator = ((char)0x2029).ToString();

    return value.Replace("\r\n", string.Empty)
                .Replace("\n", string.Empty)
                .Replace("\r", string.Empty)
                .Replace(lineSeparator, string.Empty)
                .Replace(paragraphSeparator, string.Empty);
}

edited Feb 23, 2018 at 15:08

MadDeveloper

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answered Jul 20, 2011 at 17:04

IamDeveloper

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2 Comments

maborg Over a year ago

this miss only one offending char I have in my strings : \f Formfeed

Sharunas Bielskis Over a year ago

I used it successfully to solve problems during csv file creation. Some strings in it were with line separators and it was a cause of incorrect lines arrangement. With the code above I solved the problem.

Tremmors · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-19 16:04:15Z

25

According to wikipedia, there are numerous line terminators you may need to handle (including this one you mention).

LF: Line Feed, U+000A
VT: Vertical Tab, U+000B
FF: Form Feed, U+000C
CR: Carriage Return, U+000D
CR+LF: CR (U+000D) followed by LF (U+000A)
NEL: Next Line, U+0085
LS: Line Separator, U+2028
PS: Paragraph Separator, U+2029

answered Jul 19, 2011 at 16:04

Tremmors

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1 Comment

mikebridge Over a year ago

In regex form: Regex.Replace(str, @"[\u000A\u000B\u000C\u000D\u2028\u2029\u0085]+", String.Empty)

Ed Bayiates · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-19 15:59:55Z

13

8232 (0x2028) and 8233 (0x2029) are the only other ones you might want to eliminate. See the documentation for char.IsSeparator.

answered Jul 19, 2011 at 15:59

Ed Bayiates

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3 Comments

Joe White Over a year ago

Well, no -- what's "already implemented in the language" doesn't actually solve the original problem. Read the docs for char.IsSeparator -- it won't return true for the "normal" newline characters, because Unicode classifies those as "control characters".

Ed Bayiates Over a year ago

@Joe - yes, but I was showing the OP that there is an official list of what character points he wants to get rid of, and it's in the documentation.

Vladislav Zorov Over a year ago

I think he meant just to look at the documentation, not to actually use char.IsSeparator.

csharptest.net · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-19 20:11:59Z

11

Props to Yossarian on this one, I think he's right. Replace all whitespace with a single space:

data = Regex.Replace(data, @"\s+", " ");

edited Jul 19, 2011 at 20:11

answered Jul 19, 2011 at 18:23

csharptest.net

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2 Comments

JAB Over a year ago

Uh... won't that insert spaces everywhere? As that not only matches all whitespace, it also matches the empty string. You'd want to use "\s+" instead.

Steven Over a year ago

Yes, "\s*" will match at every character, and insert a space after each one. Great if you're coding a spiffy Geocities site for 1995!

nothrow · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-19 16:10:02Z

7

I'd recommend removing ALL the whitespace (char.IsWhitespace), and replacing it with single space.. IsWhiteSpace takes care of all weird unicode whitespaces.

answered Jul 19, 2011 at 16:10

nothrow

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Comments

Robert Iver · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-19 16:07:03Z

4

This is my first attempt at this, but I think this will do what you want....

var controlChars = from c in value.ToCharArray() where Char.IsControl(c) select c;
foreach (char c in controlChars)  
   value = value.Replace(c.ToString(), "");

Also, see this link for details on other methods you can use: Char Methods

answered Jul 19, 2011 at 16:07

Robert Iver

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1 Comment

maxp Over a year ago

Slightly shorter: value = new string(value.Where(c => !char.IsControl(c)).ToArray())

Mad Dog Tannen · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-16 10:19:47Z

4

Have you tried string.Replace(Environment.NewLine, "") ? That usually gets a lot of them for me.

edited Feb 16, 2015 at 10:19

Mad Dog Tannen

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answered Jul 19, 2011 at 16:05

Josh

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2 Comments

IamDeveloper Over a year ago

I've read somewhere here that it doesn't cover ALL situations.

IamDeveloper Over a year ago

it definitely doesn't cover ALL situations, just tested it.

BBC · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-19 16:06:46Z

Check out this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/844skk0h.aspx

You wil lhave to play around and build a REGEX expression that works for you. But here's the skeleton...

static void Main(string[] args)
{

        StringBuilder txt = new StringBuilder();
        txt.Append("Hello \n\n\r\t\t");
        txt.Append( Convert.ToChar(8232));

        System.Console.WriteLine("Original: <" + txt.ToString() + ">");

        System.Console.WriteLine("Cleaned: <" + CleanInput(txt.ToString()) + ">");

        System.Console.Read();

    }

    static string CleanInput(string strIn)
    {
        // Replace invalid characters with empty strings.
        return Regex.Replace(strIn, @"[^\w\.@-]", ""); 
    }

I've tried all the other solutions and finally this is the only solution that working for me with : Regex.Replace(strIn, @"[^\w\.@-]", ""), thank you @BBC

Icemanind · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-19 15:57:05Z

0

Assuming that 8232 is unicode, you can do this:

value.Replace("\u2028", string.Empty);

answered Jul 19, 2011 at 15:57

Icemanind

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Comments

Manatherin · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-20 09:24:50Z

0

personally i'd go with

    public static String RemoveLineEndings(this String text)
    {
        StringBuilder newText = new StringBuilder();
        for (int i = 0; i < text.Length; i++)
        {
            if (!char.IsControl(text, i))
                newText.Append(text[i]);
        }
        return newText.ToString();
    }

answered Jul 20, 2011 at 9:24

Manatherin

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Comments

Mahmoud Maghrabi · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-22 14:51:40Z

0

If you've a string say "theString" then use the method Replace and give it the arguments shown below:

theString = theString.Replace(System.Environment.NewLine, "");

answered Feb 22, 2017 at 14:51

Mahmoud Maghrabi

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Comments

Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-03 12:42:57Z

Here are some quick solutions with .NET regex:

To remove any whitespace from a string: s = Regex.Replace(s, @"\s+", ""); (\s matches any Unicode whitespace chars)
To remove all whitespace BUT CR and LF: s = Regex.Replace(s, @"[\s-[\r\n]]+", ""); ([\s-[\r\n]] is a character class containing a subtraction construct, it matches any whitespace but CR and LF)
To remove any vertical whitespace, subtract \p{Zs} (any horizontal whitespace but tab) and \t (tab) from \s: s = Regex.Replace(s, @"[\s-[\p{Zs}\t]]+", "");.

Wrapping the last one into an extension method:

public static string RemoveLineEndings(this string value)
{
    return Regex.Replace(value, @"[\s-[\p{Zs}\t]]+", "");
}

See the regex demo.

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