How to remove the extra spaces in a string?

Question

What function will turn this contains spaces into this contains spaces using javascript?

I've tried the following, using similar SO questions, but could not get this to work.

var string = " this contains   spaces ";

newString = string.replace(/\s+/g,''); // "thiscontainsspaces"
newString = string.replace(/ +/g,'');  //"thiscontainsspaces"

Is there a simple pure javascript way to accomplish this?

Answer 1

You're close.

Remember that replace replaces the found text with the second argument. So:

newString = string.replace(/\s+/g,''); // "thiscontainsspaces"

Finds any number of sequential spaces and removes them. Try replacing them with a single space instead!

newString = string.replace(/\s+/g,' ').trim();

Answer 2

string.replace(/\s+/g, ' ').trim()