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javatomcatwebsphere

How to replace whitespace on both tomcat and websphere

Dev: Tomcat and Oracle JDK 1.6 Test: WebSphere and IBM JDK 1.6

The string ends in a no-break space (U+00A0/#160) when submitted to the web service.
In Tomcat, the solution below works, however in WebSphere, the no-break space comes through as a (U+00C2/#194).

public static String removeWhiteSpace(String inputString) {
    return inputString == null ? null : inputString.replaceAll("[\\s\\u00A0]+", "");
}

What would you have to do to make this work in both tomcat and WebSphere.

Solution

  • The solution we ended up going w/ was to replace both possible outputs:

    \\u00C2\\u00A0 replaces the No-Break space in our WebSphere environment.
    \\u00A0 replaces the No-Break space in our tomcat environment.
    \\s replaces any normal whitespace characters.

    In the Java:

    inputString.replaceAll("(\\u00C2\\u00A0|\\u00A0|\\s)+", "")

    Downside:

    In Tomcat, it is possible to accidentally replace a u00C2 character if it immediately precedes a no-break space. However, the risk was deemed acceptable.