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

A more robust method: This takes care of also removing the initial and trailing spaces, if they exist. Eg:

// NOTE the possible initial and trailing spaces
var str = "  The dog      has a long   tail, and it     is RED!  "

str = str.replace(/^\s+|\s+$|\s+(?=\s)/g, "");

// str -> "The dog has a long tail, and it is RED !"

Your example didn't have those spaces but they are a very common scenario too, and the accepted answer was only trimming those into single spaces, like: " The ... RED! ", which is not what you will typically need.