How to remove all the white space from string in Python

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

You forgot to include the regex. Anyway, what do you mean by replacing white-space by white-space ? Is it: "I want to aggregate all white-space sequences to a single white-space" ? — user948581
– user948581, Commented Oct 12, 2011 at 10:05
Why not to use search? stackoverflow.com/questions/1898656/… — Gandi
– Gandi, Commented Oct 12, 2011 at 10:07

naeg · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-12 15:04:04Z

9

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).

edited Oct 12, 2011 at 15:04

answered Oct 12, 2011 at 10:17

naeg

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2 Comments

Gandi Over a year ago

But why not " ".join(s.split())?

ekhumoro Over a year ago

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).

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