Is there a simple way to remove multiple spaces in a string?

Question

Suppose this string:

The   fox jumped   over    the log.

Turning into:

Answer 1

I haven't read a lot into the other examples, but I have just created this method for consolidating multiple consecutive space characters.

It does not use any libraries, and whilst it is relatively long in terms of script length, it is not a complex implementation:

def spaceMatcher(command):
    """
    Function defined to consolidate multiple whitespace characters in
    strings to a single space
    """
    # Initiate index to flag if more than one consecutive character
    iteration
    space_match = 0
    space_char = ""
    for char in command:
      if char == " ":
          space_match += 1
          space_char += " "
      elif (char != " ") & (space_match > 1):
          new_command = command.replace(space_char, " ")
          space_match = 0
          space_char = ""
      elif char != " ":
          space_match = 0
          space_char = ""
   return new_command

command = None
command = str(input("Please enter a command ->"))
print(spaceMatcher(command))
print(list(spaceMatcher(command)))