JavaScript Regex exclude leading and trailing spaces, but maintain inner-spaces

Question

I have a string like this:

' hello world '

I would like to match groups ' ' , 'hello world' , and ' '

I can't figure out how to allow spaces in the middle of the regex, where they aren't anchored to end

My attempt ( http://regex101.com ) /(^\\s*)(.+)(\\s*$)/g

Answer 1

You can use this regex with 3 capturing groups:

/^(\s*)(\S+(?:\s+\S+)*)(\s*)$/

RegEx Demo

RegEx Breakup:

• ^ : Start
• (\\s*) : Match & capture starting white space (zero or more)
• (\\S+(?:\\s+\\S+)*) : Match & capture middle string that may contain white spaces
• (\\s*) : Match & capture ending white space (zero or more)
• $ : End

Answer 2

Assuming your string is always spaces_words_spaces:

"   hello world   ".match(/^(\s+)(.*?)(\s+)$/)

Prints:

["   hello world   ", "   ", "hello world", "   ", index: 0, input: "   hello world   "]