Regex to replace multiple spaces with a single space

Question

Given a string like:

\"The dog      has a long   tail, and it     is RED!\"

What kind of jQuery or JavaScript magic can be used to keep spaces to only o

Answer 1

This is one solution, though it will target all space characters:

"The      dog        has a long tail,      and it is RED!".replace(/\s\s+/g, ' ')

"The dog has a long tail, and it is RED!"

Edit: This is probably better since it targets a space followed by 1 or more spaces:

"The      dog        has a long tail,      and it is RED!".replace(/  +/g, ' ')

"The dog has a long tail, and it is RED!"

Alternative method:

"The      dog        has a long tail,      and it is RED!".replace(/ {2,}/g, ' ')
"The dog has a long tail, and it is RED!"

I didn't use /\s+/ by itself since that replaces spaces that span 1 character multiple times and might be less efficient since it targets more than necessary.

I didn't deeply test any of these so lmk if there are bugs.

Also, if you're going to do string replacement remember to re-assign the variable/property to its own replacement, eg:

var string = 'foo'
string = string.replace('foo', '')

Using jQuery.prototype.text:

var el = $('span:eq(0)');
el.text( el.text().replace(/\d+/, '') )