Replacing   from javascript dom text node

Question

I am processing xhtml using javascript. I am getting the text content for a div node by concatenating the nodeValue of all child nodes where nodeType == Node.TEXT_NODE.

The resulting string sometimes contains a non-breaking space entity. How do I replace this with a regular space character?

My div looks like this...

<div><b>Expires On</b> Sep 30, 2009 06:30&nbsp;AM</div>

The following suggestions found on the web did not work:

var cleanText = text.replace(/^\xa0*([^\xa0]*)\xa0*$/g,"");


var cleanText = replaceHtmlEntities(text);

var replaceHtmlEntites = (function() {
  var translate_re = /&(nbsp|amp|quot|lt|gt);/g;
  var translate = {
    "nbsp": " ",
    "amp" : "&",
    "quot": "\"",
    "lt"  : "<",
    "gt"  : ">"
  };
  return function(s) {
    return ( s.replace(translate_re, function(match, entity) {
      return translate[entity];
    }) );
  }
})();

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I think when you define a function with "var foo = function() {...};", the function is only defined after that line. In other words, try this:

var replaceHtmlEntites = (function() {
  var translate_re = /&(nbsp|amp|quot|lt|gt);/g;
  var translate = {
    "nbsp": " ",
    "amp" : "&",
    "quot": "\"",
    "lt"  : "<",
    "gt"  : ">"
  };
  return function(s) {
    return ( s.replace(translate_re, function(match, entity) {
      return translate[entity];
    }) );
  }
})();

var cleanText = text.replace(/^\xa0*([^\xa0]*)\xa0*$/g,"");
cleanText = replaceHtmlEntities(text);

Edit: Also, only use "var" the first time you declare a variable (you're using it twice on the cleanText variable).

Edit 2: The problem is the spelling of the function name. You have "var replaceHtmlEntites =". It should be "var replaceHtmlEntities ="

Answer 2

If you only need to replace   then you can use a far simpler regex:

var textWithNBSpaceReplaced = originalText.replace(/ /g, ' ');

Also, there is a typo in your div example, it says &nnbsp; instead of  .

Answer 3

This is much easier than you're making it. The text node will not have the literal string " " in it, it'll have have the corresponding character with code 160.

function replaceNbsps(str) {
  var re = new RegExp(String.fromCharCode(160), "g");
  return str.replace(re, " ");
}

textNode.nodeValue = replaceNbsps(textNode.nodeValue);

Answer 4

That first line is pretty messed up. It only needs to be:

var cleanText = text.replace(/\xA0/g,' ');

That should be all you need.

Answer 5

i used this, and it worked:

var cleanText = text.replace(/ /g,"");