REGEX remove whitespace from JSON ignoring values

Question

RE: How to remove whitespaces and newlines from every value in a JSON file?

I want to do the opposite, and ignore values or groups but remove all whitespace from the structure of a JSON, for example:

Input:

{
    "1": "This   is        a string",
    "AnInt": 123,
    "3": [6, 9, 429]
}

Goal Output:

{"1":"This   is        a string","AnInt":123,"3":[6,9,429]}

I can get close with

\s+(?=(?:[^"]*"[^"]*"[^"]*)*$)

but it does't remove the spaces in and around the group in 3

When I modify the REGEX to capture around the square brackets for groups it breaks completely \s+(?=(?:[^"]*"[^"]*"[^"]*)*$)*(?=(?:[^[]*[[^[]*][^]]*)*$)*

Answer 1

You may use this regex to match whitespaces outside quotes:

\s+(?=(?:(?:[^"]*"){2})*[^"]*$)

If using a regex engine with support of possessive quantifier:

\s+(?=(?:(?:[^"]*"){2})*[^"]*+$)

Output:

{"1":"This   is        a string","AnInt":123,"3":[6,9,429]}

RegEx Demo

Replacement would be just an empty string.

This regex will split on whitespaces if those are outside double quotes by using a lookahead to make sure there are even number of quotes after matching 1+ whitespaces.