Question

I have a problem building a regex. this is a sample of the text:

text 123 12345 abc 12    def 67 i 89 o 0    t 2

The numbers are sometimes padded with blanks to the max length (3).
e.g.:

• “1” can be “1” or “1 “
• “13” can be “13” or “13 “

My regex is at the moment this:

\b([\d](\s*)){1,3}\b

The results of this regex are the following: (. = blank for better visibility)

123.
12....
67.
89.
0....
2

But I need this: (. = blank for better visibility)

123
12.
67.
89.
0..
2

How can I tell the regex engine to count the blanks into the {1,3} option?

Answer 1

Try this:

\b(?:\d[\d\s]{0,2})(?:(?<=\s)|\b)

This will also cover strings like text 123 1 23 12345 123abc 12 def 67 i 89 o 0 t 2 and results in:

123
1.
23.
12.
67.
89.
0..
2