From: Josh Cheek <josh.cheek@...>
Date: 2011-04-26T04:02:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Replace any multiple whitespaces with single white space

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On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Joel VanderWerf
<joelvanderwerf@gmail.com>wrote:

> On 04/25/2011 11:44 AM, Michelle Pace wrote:
>
>> Hello, I need to make the first string below into the second string.
>> That is, only single white spaces are permitted.
>>
>> "1/4 WELDING    LEVER FRONT DRW 14844-C  MAT  WMA1CM-WLFRONT"
>> into
>> "1/4 WELDING LEVER FRONT DRW 14844-C MAT WMA1CM-WLFRONT"
>>
>>
>>
>> I want to use the sub! method. Why does the below code not work? Is my
>> pattern incorrect?
>>
>> descrip = "1/4 WELDING    LEVER FRONT DRW 14844-C  MAT  WMA1CM-WLFRONT"
>> descrip.sub!(/\s+/,' ')
>> puts descrip
>>
>
> sub! only affects the *first* match. You can substitute globally with gsub.
> Also you might as well only match 2 or more spaces:
>
> descrip.gsub!(/\s\s+/,' ')
>
>

I think the original regex is better, because leads to more consistent
results:

"hello\tworld    !".gsub(/\s\s+/,' ') # => "hello\tworld !"
"hello\tworld    !".gsub(/\s+/,' ')   # => "hello world !"

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