# Using gsub to replace an unknown amount of multiple white space to single whitespace

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-gsub-to-replace-an-unknown-amount-of-multiple-white-space-to-single-whitespace/201363
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [September 27, 2019, 8:55am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-gsub-to-replace-an-unknown-amount-of-multiple-white-space-to-single-whitespace/201363 "2019-09-27T08:55:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Jasonespo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Jasonespo](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jasonespo)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2019, 8:55am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-gsub-to-replace-an-unknown-amount-of-multiple-white-space-to-single-whitespace/201363/1 "2019-09-27T08:55:08Z")

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Hi guys,

Does anyone know how to replace multiple whitespace using gsub?

Below doesn't work - but something like this?

```
 gsub => [
                "syslog_event", "\s+", " ",
                ]

```

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Badger](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/badger/32/25190_2.png) [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-gsub-to-replace-an-unknown-amount-of-multiple-white-space-to-single-whitespace/201363/2 "2019-09-27T14:19:14Z")

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It works for me. These

```
    mutate { add_field => { "someField" => "a b" } }
    mutate { gsub => ["someField", "\s+", " "] }

```

result in

```
 "someField" => "a b",
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Jasonespo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Jasonespo](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jasonespo)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2019, 4:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-gsub-to-replace-an-unknown-amount-of-multiple-white-space-to-single-whitespace/201363/3 "2019-09-27T16:08:54Z")

</div>

I had that comma at the end which was causing it to fail (obviously) - Thanks though 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2019, 4:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-gsub-to-replace-an-unknown-amount-of-multiple-white-space-to-single-whitespace/201363/4 "2019-10-25T16:08:56Z")

</div>

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