Replace First N Occurrences in the String

Question

How can I replace first N occurrences of many whitespaces and tabs in the following string:

07/12/2017  11:01 AM             21523 filename with s p a c  e  s.js

I am expecting the following result:

07/12/2017|11:01|AM|21523|filename with s p a c  e  s.js

I know not very elegant option only via calling replace N times on the same string

.replace(/\s+/, "|").replace(/\s+/, "|").replace(/\s+/, "|");

Worth to mention that I'm going to run this on near 1,000,000 lines so performance matters.

Answer 1

Probably something like this:

var txt = "07/12/2017  11:01 AM             21523 filename with s p a c  e  s.js";

var n = 0, N = 4;
newTxt = txt.replace(/\s+/g, match => n++ < N ? "|" : match);

newTxt; // "07/12/2017|11:01|AM|21523|filename with s p a c  e  s.js"

Answer 2

You could take a counter and decrement it.

 var string = '07/12/2017 11:01 AM 21523 filename with space s.js', n = 4, result = string.replace(/\\s+/g, s => n ? (n--, '|') : s); console.log(result); 

You could replace the ternary expression with one with logical AND and OR.

 var string = '07/12/2017 11:01 AM 21523 filename with space s.js', n = 4, result = string.replace(/\\s+/g, s => n && n-- && '|' || s); console.log(result); 

Answer 3

I'd go with something like this. Though I kinda like Derek's answer so I'll look his up and understand what he/she does in it.

var mytext = "some text separated by spaces and spaces and more spaces";
var iterationCount = 4;
while(iterationCount > 0)
  {
    mytext = mytext.replace(" ", "");
    iterationCount--;
  }
return mytext;

Answer 4

Derek and Nina provide great answers for dynamically replacing N whitespace groups. If N is static, the non-whitespace token ( \\S ) can be used to match and keep the groups between whitespace:

.replace(/\\s+(\\S+)\\s+(\\S+)\\s+/, '|$1|$2|')

Answer 5

What about recursive version of you own solution?

function repalceLeadSpaces(str, substitution, n) {
    n = n || 0;
    if (!str || n <= 0) {
        return str;
    }
    str = str.replace(/\s+/, substitution);
    return n === 1 ? str : repalceLeadSpaces(str, substitution, n - 1)
}

Answer 6

Some answers here are really good already, but since you say you want speed, I'd go with a single while, like this:

 var logLine = '07/12/2017 11:01 AM 21523 filename with space s.js'; var N = 4; while(--N + 1){ logLine = logLine.replace(/\\s+/, '|'); } console.log(logLine); 

Here's on JSFiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/2bxpygjr/