I would like to replace blank spaces/white spaces in a string with commas.
STR1=This is a string to
STR1=This,is,a,string 
- 4Should 2 consecutive spaces be replaced by one comma?glenn jackman– glenn jackman2012-04-02 21:30:15 +00:00Commented Apr 2, 2012 at 21:30
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6 Answers
Without using external tools:
echo ${STR1// /,} Demo:
$ STR1="This is a string" $ echo ${STR1// /,} This,is,a,string 3 Comments
Kyle Strand
Is there a way to force multiple spaces to be translated into a single comma (without turning to a tool like
awk)?
Mat
@Kyle: if you have
extglob on, you can do something like ${STR1//+( )/,}.
Ken Ingram
perfect solution. Elegant.
Just use sed:
echo "$STR1" | sed 's/ /,/g' or a pure BASH substitution:
echo "${STR1// /,}" 
Comments
kent$ echo "STR1=This is a string"|awk -v OFS="," '$1=$1' STR1=This,is,a,string Note:
if there are continued blanks, they would be replaced with a single comma. as example above shows.
2 Comments
Rakurai
This is almost certainly the answer that most people who visit this question are looking for, rather than variations on replacing a series of spaces with a series of commas.
MaXi32
I think this should be the best answer as the top answer also putting comma at the end if there is blank space which is not good.
This might work for you:
echo 'STR1=This is a string' | sed 'y/ /,/' STR1=This,is,a,string or:
echo 'STR1=This is a string' | tr ' ' ',' STR1=This,is,a,string 
Comments
How about
STR1="This is a string" StrFix="$( echo "$STR1" | sed 's/[[:space:]]/,/g')" echo "$StrFix" **output** This,is,a,string If you have multiple adjacent spaces in your string and what to reduce them to just 1 comma, then change the sed to
STR1="This is a string" StrFix="$( echo "$STR1" | sed 's/[[:space:]][[:space:]]*/,/g')" echo "$StrFix" **output** This,is,a,string I'm using a non-standard sed, and so have used ``[[:space:]][[:space:]]*to indicate one or more "white-space" characters (including tabs, VT, maybe a few others). In a modern sed, I would expect[[:space:]]+` to work as well.
Comments
STR1=`echo $STR1 | sed 's/ /,/g'` 