strip indent in groovy multiline strings

Question

Unfortunately stripIndent on a multiline string does not work. Side note: My IDE code style preferences allow only space indentation (tabs will be replaced by spaces). But i

Answer 1

I have a similar use-case because I'd like to format my SQL query in line. For example the nested query:

String query = '''
    select ${CONTROL_ID} from ${TABLE_NAME} 
        where 
            location_id = ( 
                select id from location where code = ${locationCode} 
            )  
''';

Looks a lot better in Groovy than a Java version with "..."+ TABLE_NAME +"..." as I'm sure you can agree.

This kind of string doesn't work with the .stripIndent() method. Instead I retained the new lines in query (above) for a purpose -- Note no "\" at the end of line.

And thus

String query = """
    select ${CONTROL_ID} from ${TABLE_NAME} 
        where 
            location_id = ( 
                select id from location where code = '${locationCode}' 
            )  
""".replaceAll( /\n\s*/, " " );

println  "  Query= ${query};"; 

Give a neatly formatted single line SQL query result:

  Query = select id from controls where  location_id = (  select id from location where code = '003');

Which I find quite helpful and easier to read. I replace with a single space to make sure the SQL stays discrete. The important part is to use the newline(\n) as a de facto start-line or anchor. Fine for mixed TAB-s and SPACE-s.

Of course it also works for the original question too.