Question

I get a string from XML likebelow:

This is the                                     Sample text I need to get       
all this               but only with single spaces

Actually I am using the following reg-ex which is converting matching pattern to white space but I need them to be stripped not replaced by white space.

The above string should be output:

This is the Sample text I need to get all this but only with single spaces

Answer 1

Simple solution without regex:

s = 'This is the                                     Sample text I need to get       all this               but only with single spaces'
' '.join(s.split())
#'This is the Sample text I need to get all this but only with single spaces'

For completeness I’ll add ekhumoro’s comment to my answer:

It’s worth pointing out that split() does more than simply splitting
on runs of whitespace: it also strips any whitespace at the beginning
and end of the input (which is usually what is wanted). It also
correctly handles non-breaking spaces if the input is unicode (which
will probably be relevant for XML).