Question posted in 
How can I add a space before every & and - characters if there are not there already?
I’ve been looking on the internet to try and see how to retain the original character in the replacement value:
Private Function fPhraseSpacesLeadingAdd() As String
Dim strClsPhrase As String = "Cobb& Co is nice. Also so is M& Sheer and B- Cafe."
'Desired output: "Cobb & Co is nice. Also so is M & Sheer and B - Cafe."
Dim strReturn As String = strClsPhrase
Dim strItems = New String() {"&", "-"}
For Each strItem As String In strItems
Dim rg1 As New Regex("." + strItem)
strReturn = rg1.Replace(strReturn, "1 " + strItem)
Next
Return strReturn
End Function
PS: after that I would like to create separate functions for the following but hopefully I can figure those out using similar code:
Function fSpaceTrailingAdd()
'Follow : ; , & with a single space if none there
and
Function fSpaceTrailingRemove()
'Remove any spaces after $ “ ‘ ( [ {
2
Answers
Are you requiring Regex?
You can do it simply with String.Replace by removing any existing spaces and then adding the space to all.
Both & and – can be done with a single expression.
Your additional functions can be accomplished the same way.
With Regex you could handle the case of multiple spaces if that is required. With String.Replace you would need a loop. The * gets rid of multiple spaces in front.
As a single Regex you might try:
and replacing with a single space:
See: regex101
Explanation
(?= ... [&-]): Find all positions after which you find "&" or "-" …(?<!s): and before which there is no space