Question

How can I remove all extra space between words in a string literal?

"some    value"

Should become

"some value"

Also,

"    This    should  become   something          else   too . "

Becomes

"This should become something else too ."

Do not worry about moving the .. Just as above is fine. I know I can use $.trim(str) to achieve the trailing/ending space removal. But, I’m not sure how to do the 1 space between words trick.

Answer 1

var string = "    This    should  become   something          else   too . ";
string = string.replace(/\s+/g, " ");

This code replaces a consecutive set of whitespace characters (\s+) by a single white space. Note that a white-space character also includes tab and newlines. Replace \s by a space if you only want to replace spaces.

If you also want to remove the whitespace at the beginning and end, include:

string = string.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, "");

This line removes all white-space characters at the beginning (^) and end ($). The g at the end of the RegExp means: global, ie match and replace all occurences.