How can I remove extra white space in a string in JavaScript?

Question

How can I remove extra white space (i.e. more than one white space character in a row) from text in JavaScript?

E.g

match    the start using.
         


        

Answer 1

Use regex. Example code below:

var string = 'match    the start using. Remove the extra space between match and the';
string = string.replace(/\s{2,}/g, ' ');

For better performance, use below regex:

string = string.replace(/ +/g, ' ');

Profiling with firebug resulted in following:

str.replace(/ +/g, ' ')        ->  790ms
str.replace(/ +/g, ' ')       ->  380ms
str.replace(/ {2,}/g, ' ')     ->  470ms
str.replace(/\s\s+/g, ' ')     ->  390ms
str.replace(/ +(?= )/g, ' ')    -> 3250ms