Regex for removing whitespace between html tags

Report · Mar 05, 2025

<html>  <div><p> Hi there</p>  </div> </html>

Sample code above has whitespace, which I need to get rid of. I've found various examples used in different code settings and tried plugging them into a CF REReplace() function, but nothing has worked so far.

e.g. something like this in node

var result = html.replace(/>\s+|\s+</g, function(m) {
    return m.trim();
});

Any help greatly appreciated.

Report · Mar 05, 2025

You could solve it in a simple way, by using reReplaceNocase() twice. The first call replaces ">\s" with ">", the second replaces "\s<" with "<":

<cfscript>	
	html = "<html>  <div><p> Hi there</p>  </div> </html>";
	htmlSpaceless = html.reReplaceNoCase(">\s",">","all").reReplaceNoCase("\s<","<","all");
	writeoutput(htmlSpaceless); 
</cfscript>

Report · Mar 05, 2025

Yes, that is perfect. Thank you so much!

Report · Mar 05, 2025

My pleasure, @paul_8809 !

Report · Mar 05, 2025

var result = html.rereplace("\s*([<|>])\s*", "\1", "all");

Report · Mar 06, 2025

Good find, @kazu98296633 . Your suggestion solves a wider problem of which @paul_8809 's is a part. Namely, it removes any spaces before or after the characters "<" and ">" :

<cfscript>	
	html = "<html>  <  div >   <               p > Hi there  < /p >  <  /div > <  /html                         >";
	htmlSpaceless = html.rereplace("\s*([<|>])\s*", "\1", "all");
	writeoutput(htmlSpaceless); 
</cfscript>

Regex for removing whitespace between html tags

2 Correct answers