Regex question for String.replace; match whitespace OR nothing

[jwcarlton]

I have a section that may, or may not, include a whitespace. Like
this:

var string = "<b><p>Jason</p> </b>";

I'm wanting to do this:

string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p> <\/b>/gi, "Jason");

But the problem is that the whitespace between </p> and </b> might NOT
exist. I'm doing it like this, but I know that it's wrong because it
would find anything, not just a whitespace:

string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p>(.*)<\/b>/gi, "Jason");

I'm pretty sure that this isn't right, but it's the direction I was
going:

string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p>(\s*|(.)*?)<\/b>/gi,
"Jason");


What's the correct way to match a whitespace, or nothing?

 

[Martin Honnen]

I have a section that may, or may not, include a whitespace. Like
this:

var string = "<b><p>Jason</p> </b>";

I'm wanting to do this:

string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p> <\/b>/gi, "Jason");

But the problem is that the whitespace between</p> and</b> might NOT
exist. I'm doing it like this, but I know that it's wrong because it
would find anything, not just a whitespace:

string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p>(.*)<\/b>/gi, "Jason");

I'm pretty sure that this isn't right, but it's the direction I was
going:

string = string.replace(/<b><p>jason<\/p>(\s*|(.)*?)<\/b>/gi,
"Jason");


What's the correct way to match a whitespace, or nothing?

Well if you expect a single space or no space then use
/<b><p>jason<\/p> ?<\/b>/gi
or if you expect any white space then use
/<b><p>jason<\/p>\s*<\/b>/gi
But as one of your samples already uses \s I am not sure I understand
what problem you face.