How to remove extra spaces in bash?

Question

How to remove extra spaces in variable HEAD?

HEAD=\"    how to  remove    extra        spaces                     \"

Result:

Answer 1

echo variable without quotes does what you want:

HEAD="    how to  remove    extra        spaces      "
echo $HEAD

# or assign to new variable
NEW_HEAD=$(echo $HEAD)
echo $NEW_HEAD

output: how to remove extra spaces