THE JOIN() FUNCTION

Another way to remove extraneous spaces is to use the join() function:

text1 = '   there are   extra  spaces   '

print('text1:',text1)

text2 = ' '.join(text1.split())

print('text2:',text2)

text2 = 'XYZ'.join(text1.split())

print('text2:',text2)

The split() function “splits” a text string into a set of words, and also removes the extraneous white spaces. Next, the join() function “joins” together the words in the string text1, using a single white space as the delimiter. The last code portion of the preceding code block uses the string XYZ as the delimiter instead of a single white space. The output of the preceding code block is as follows:

text1:   there are   extra   spaces

text2: there are extra spaces

text2: thereXYZareXYZextraXYZspaces...