How do I replace multiple spaces with a single space in C#?

Question

How can I replace multiple spaces in a string with only one space in C#?

Example:

1 2 3  4    5

would be:

1 2 3 4 5         


        

Answer 1

This is a shorter version, which should only be used if you are only doing this once, as it creates a new instance of the Regex class every time it is called.

temp = new Regex(" {2,}").Replace(temp, " "); 

If you are not too acquainted with regular expressions, here's a short explanation:

The {2,} makes the regex search for the character preceding it, and finds substrings between 2 and unlimited times.
The .Replace(temp, " ") replaces all matches in the string temp with a space.

If you want to use this multiple times, here is a better option, as it creates the regex IL at compile time:

Regex singleSpacify = new Regex(" {2,}", RegexOptions.Compiled);
temp = singleSpacify.Replace(temp, " ");