The following example shows how you can check whether a character is a whitespace character by using the isWhitespace() method in the mx.utils.StringUtil class. And just for giggles, I also show how you can do the same thing using regular expressions (RegExp) with POSIX character classes.

Full code after the jump.

View MXML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2007/09/08/checking-if-a-character-is-whitespace-using-the-flex-stringutil-classs-iswhitespace-method/ -->
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
        layout="vertical"
        verticalAlign="middle"
        backgroundColor="white">

    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import mx.controls.dataGridClasses.DataGridColumn;
            import mx.utils.StringUtil;

            private function isWhitespace_labelFunc(item:Object, column:DataGridColumn):String {
                var char:String = item.toString();
                return StringUtil.isWhitespace(char).toString();
            }

            private function isWhitespace_RegExp_labelFunc(item:Object, column:DataGridColumn):String {
                var char:String = item.toString();
                var re:RegExp = /^[[:space:]]$/;
                return re.test(char).toString();
            }

            private function charCodeAt_labelFunc(item:Object, column:DataGridColumn):String {
                var char:String = item.toString();
                return item.charCodeAt(0).toString();
            }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>

    <mx:String id="str">The quick    brown
    fox jumped        over the    lazy dog.</mx:String>

    <mx:ArrayCollection id="arrColl" source="{str.split('')}" />

    <mx:ApplicationControlBar dock="true">
        <mx:Text text="{str}" selectable="false" />
    </mx:ApplicationControlBar>

    <mx:DataGrid id="dataGrid"
            dataProvider="{arrColl}"
            width="100%"
            height="100%">
        <mx:columns>
            <mx:DataGridColumn dataTipField="lbl"
                    headerText="Character" />
            <mx:DataGridColumn labelFunction="isWhitespace_labelFunc"
                    headerText="isWhitespace(char)" />
            <mx:DataGridColumn labelFunction="isWhitespace_RegExp_labelFunc"
                    headerText="[[:space:]]" />
            <mx:DataGridColumn labelFunction="charCodeAt_labelFunc"
                    headerText="charCodeAt()" />
        </mx:columns>
    </mx:DataGrid>

</mx:Application>

View source is enabled in the following example.

For slightly more information on using POSIX Character Classes with Regular Expressions, check out “Validating data using Regular Expressions“.

 
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About The Author

Peter deHaan

Peter deHaan currently works for Adobe on the Flex SDK QA team. While not working on Flex, Flash, and ColdFusion applications, Peter enjoys making up bios and writing in 3rd person. Peter's rarely updated blog can be found at blogs.adobe.com/pdehaan/, actionscriptexamples.com, airexamples.com, and coldfusionexamples.com.

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