python – Remove all whitespace in a string

If you want to remove leading and ending spaces, use str.strip():

sentence =  hello  apple
sentence.strip()
>>> hello  apple

If you want to remove all space characters, use str.replace():

(NB this only removes the “normal” ASCII space character U+0020 but not any other whitespace)

sentence =  hello  apple
sentence.replace( , )
>>> helloapple

If you want to remove duplicated spaces, use str.split():

sentence =  hello  apple
 .join(sentence.split())
>>> hello apple

To remove only spaces use str.replace:

sentence = sentence.replace( , )

To remove all whitespace characters (space, tab, newline, and so on) you can use split then join:

sentence = .join(sentence.split())

or a regular expression:

import re
pattern = re.compile(rs+)
sentence = re.sub(pattern, , sentence)

If you want to only remove whitespace from the beginning and end you can use strip:

sentence = sentence.strip()

You can also use lstrip to remove whitespace only from the beginning of the string, and rstrip to remove whitespace from the end of the string.

An alternative is to use regular expressions and match these strange white-space characters too. Here are some examples:

Remove ALL spaces in a string, even between words:

import re
sentence = re.sub(rs+, , sentence, flags=re.UNICODE)

Remove spaces in the BEGINNING of a string:

import re
sentence = re.sub(r^s+, , sentence, flags=re.UNICODE)

Remove spaces in the END of a string:

import re
sentence = re.sub(rs+$, , sentence, flags=re.UNICODE)

Remove spaces both in the BEGINNING and in the END of a string:

import re
sentence = re.sub(^s+|s+$, , sentence, flags=re.UNICODE)

Remove ONLY DUPLICATE spaces:

import re
sentence =  .join(re.split(s+, sentence, flags=re.UNICODE))

(All examples work in both Python 2 and Python 3)