Removing \n and leading spaces with String.replaceAll()

Question

I am trying to format a large XML string that contains carriage returns and lines with leading spaces. Something like this (pseudo example)...
s: "<a>
��<b>some text</b>
��<c>
����<d>more text</d>
��</c>
</a>"When i am done, i want it to look like this...
s: "<a><b>some text</b><c><d>more text</d></c></a>"I have tried using replaceAll() in this way....
  s = s.replaceAll("^\\s+","");// to remove leading spaces
  s = s.replaceAll("\\n","");// to remove carriage returnsHowever, I am not getting the results I expect. In fact, the entire string seems to simply turn into all whitespace....
s: "                                           "My question is: Is there an easier way? (or at least a way that works?)

Answer 1

try this:
public String transformXML(String s) {
    s = s.replace("^\\s+", "");
    s = s.replace("\\s+$", "");
    s = s.replace("\\s+", " ");
    s = s.replace("\\s*<\\s*([^<>]*?)\\s*>\\s*", "<$1>");
    return s;
}which would transform your example expression from:
<a>
<b>some text</b>
<c>
<d>more text</d>
</c>
</a>
to probably what you want:
<a><b>some text</b><c><d>more text</d></c></a>
Hope this helps~
Alex Lam S.L.