Replace with Regex in JS

Question

I have a file which consists of places where there are multiple underscores. I need to convert them all to single underscores.

How can I do this in Node?

My current solution:

var fs = require("fs");
filename = "questions.txt";
ofilename = "o.txt";
fs.readFile(filename, "utf8", function (err, data) {
  if (err) {
    return console.log(err);
  }
  var result = data.replace(/_+/g, "_");

  fs.writeFile(ofilename, result, "utf8", function (err) {
    if (err) return console.log(err);
  });
});

This gives me a file where everything is in binary.

You can do this without JS, using sed in terminal sed 's/__*/_/g' questions.txt — Jacek Rojek
– Jacek Rojek, Commented Jul 22, 2020 at 13:42
add > o.txt to save to a file sed 's/__*/_/g' test.txt > o.txt — Jacek Rojek
– Jacek Rojek, Commented Jul 22, 2020 at 13:58
@JacekRojek sorry it might have been an encoding issue. this gave me the same result on utf16. but on changing to utf8 everything works. — Karan Singh
– Karan Singh, Commented Jul 22, 2020 at 14:01

8HoLoN · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-22 13:34:13Z

1

Your code works well.

var fs = require("fs");
filename = "./questions.txt";
ofilename = "o.txt";
fs.readFile(filename, "utf8", function (err, data) {
  if (err) {
    return console.log(err);
  }
  console.log(data);
  var result = data.replace(/_+/g, "_");

  fs.writeFile(ofilename, result, "utf8", function (err) {
    if (err) return console.log(err);
  });
});

produces:

toto

_
_
rr

from:

toto

__
__
rr

Be sure that your input file is well utf8 encoded.

answered Jul 22, 2020 at 13:34

8HoLoN

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5 Comments

Karan Singh Over a year ago

ibb.co/yNcyP53 the output is this, when I run it

Karan Singh Over a year ago

I am not sure if my input file is utf8. It is just a txt file. What other formats can I use?

8HoLoN Over a year ago

and show your input file encoding (at bottom right of the ide)

Karan Singh Over a year ago

it says utf16le

8HoLoN Over a year ago

So click on it, select "save with encoding" and select "utf8", assuming you are on vscode

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