Split string with variable whitespace characters in Powershell

Question

I would like to split a string witch has a variable whitespace characters, but a get a lot of empty lines which I would like to eliminate. this code

$text = "Video  Video  Audio  Audio  VBI    VBI"
$text.Split()

outputs this

Video

Video

Audio

Audio

VBI



VBI

PS H:\>

and I would like this

Video
Video
Audio  
Audio
VBI
VBI

Very late edit:
Noticed this question is still getting a lot of views, so I would like to clarify that I had no knowledge of Functional Programming or Regular Expressions when I asked this question.
All the solutions mentioned here apply as there are multiple ways to remove whitespace and create an array from a string.

Answer 1

You can use PowerShell's -split operator which uses regular expressions.

"Video  Video  Audio  Audio  VBI    VBI" -split '\s+'

As noted by @StijnDeVos, this does not remove leading/trailing whitespace.

Here, the \s represents whitespace characters, and the + matches one or more of them. All the more reason to go with @user3554001's answer.

Another option is to filter the empty strings.

 "Video  Video  Audio  Audio  VBI    VBI".split()| where {$_}

Answer 2

you can use this snippet to eliminate empty lines :

$text.split(" ",[System.StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntries)

Answer 3

-split "Video Video Audio Audio VBI VBI"

Answer 4

Try this, it replaces more than one instance of a space with a single instance before carrying out the split command:

$($text -replace '\s+', ' ').split()

Answer 5

The -split operator takes a regex argument, so just match multiple whitespace characters (\s+):

$Text = $text = "Video  Video  Audio  Audio  VBI    VBI"
$text -split '\s+' -match '\S'

Video
Video
Audio
Audio
VBI
VBI

Any trailing whitespace after the last one may leave you will a null entry, so the -match will eliminate anything that is only whitespace.