regex - replace multi line breaks with single in javascript

Question

this is some kind of variable content in javascript:

    <meta charset="utf-8">

    <title>Some Meep meta, awesome</title>




    <-- some comment here -->
    <meta name="someMeta, yay" content="meep">

</head>

I want to reduce the multi line breaks (unknown number) to a single line break while the rest of the formatting is still maintained. This should be done in javascript with a regex.

I have problems with the tabulator or to keep the format.

Answer 1

Try this:

text.replace(/
s*
/g, '
');

This basically looks for two line breaks with only whitespace in between. And then it replaces those by a single line break. Due to the global flag g, this is repeated for every possible match.

edit:

is it possibile to leave a double line break instead of a single

Sure, simplest way would be to just look for three line breaks and replace them by two:

text.replace(/
s*
s*
/g, '

');

If you want to maintain the whitespace on one of the lines (for whatever reason), you could also do it like this:

text.replace(/(
s*?
)s*
/, '$1');