How to remove leading zeros with long string

Question

I'm trying to remove leading zeros from a string where there are multiple other strings and numbers in java

so ow -   00250 =     00000000 ]

for the above input I'm trying to get the output to be

so ow - 250 = 0 ]

I have tried

removeLeadingZeros(str.trim().replaceAll(" +", " ")

where removeLeadingZeros is

    // Regex to remove leading
    // zeros from a string
    String regex = "^0+(?!$)";

    // Replaces the matched
    // value with given string
    str = str.replaceAll(regex, "");

    return str;

but I am getting the output

so ow -   00250 =     00000000 ]

which is the same as the original input.

These methods seem to only work for the first element in the string if it is a number such as

00015039 so ow + - 003948 83

which returns

15039 so ow + - 003948 83

but want to return

15039 so ow + - 3948 83

thanks!

Answer 1

By splitting the given string into array and then remove the leading zeroes, is working fine.

where removeLeadingZeros is:

public static  String removeLeading(String str) {
String regex = "^0+(?!$)";
String x[] = str.split(" ");
StringBuilder z = new StringBuilder();
    
for(String y:x) {
    str = y.replaceAll(regex, "");
    z.append(" " + str);
}
return z.toString();
}