regular expression to remove extra spaces from the line in python

Question

data =  "        Taylors Lakes, VIC        "

I need regular expression to remove extra spaces from this string but not from between the words so that the string looks like this

data = "Taylors Lakes, VIC"

This might be helpful later: `s = " extra spaces "; s2 = ' '.join(s.split())` s2 would be "extra spaces". Although, not shown here s has multiple spaces at the ends and middle. — cppxor2arr, Feb 01 '18 at 10:18

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 10 '19 at 14:09

5

paste your code instead of a screenshot
Don't use a regex, but .strip() which removes all whitespaces from the beginning and end:

data = data.strip()

edited Mar 10 '19 at 14:09

Zac G

answered Feb 01 '18 at 09:52

FlyingTeller

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 01 '18 at 09:53

3

You don't need Regex for that. Just use

"    abc   ".strip()

or

data = data.strip()

answered Feb 01 '18 at 09:53

Greaka

sid8491 · Answer 3 · 2018-02-01T10:01:02.407

You can just use strip() method, it will remove both beginning and ending whitespaces from the string.

data = "            Taylors Lakes, VIC            "
print(data.strip())

Output: Taylors Lakes, VIC

However if you still want to use regex, below code will do it:

import re
data = "            Taylors Lakes, VIC            "

data = re.sub('^[ \t]+|[ \t]+$', '', data)
print(data)

Output: Taylors Lakes, VIC

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 01 '18 at 10:00

2

The solution in Python 3 is :

data = "            Taylors Lakes, VIC       "
print(data.strip())

The output is:

>>> Taylors Lakes, VIC

The solution in Python 2:

data = "            Taylors Lakes, VIC       "
print data.strip()

The output is:

>>> Taylors Lakes, VIC

answered Feb 01 '18 at 10:00

4 Answers4