Excess whitespace removal throughout a string

NAMESPACE

@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ export(str_replace_na)
 export(str_sort)
 export(str_split)
 export(str_split_fixed)
+export(str_squish)
 export(str_sub)
 export(str_subset)
 export(str_to_lower)

NEWS.md

@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@
 * `str_remove()` and `str_remove_all()` functions. These wrap 
   `str_replace()` and `str_replace_all()` to remove patterns from strings.
   (@Shians, #178)
+
+* `str_squish()` removes spaces from both the left and right side of strings, and also converts multiple space (or space-like characters) to a single space within strings. (@stephlocke #197)
 
 ## Bug fixes and minor improvements
 

R/trim.R

@@ -17,3 +17,14 @@ str_trim <- function(string, side = c("both", "left", "right")) {
     both =  stri_trim_both(string)
   )
 }
+
+#' Trim whitespace from start, middle, and end of string.
+#'
+#' @export
+#' @rdname str_trim
+#' @examples
+#' str_squish("  String with trailing,  middle, and leading white space\t")
+#' str_squish("\n\nString with excess,  trailing and leading white   space\n\n")
+str_squish <- function(string) {
+  stri_trim_both(str_replace_all(string,"\\s+"," "))
+}

tests/testthat/test-trim.r

@@ -16,3 +16,9 @@ test_that("side argument restricts trimming", {
   expect_equal(str_trim(" abc ", "left"),  "abc ")
   expect_equal(str_trim(" abc ", "right"), " abc")
 })
+
+test_that("str_squish removes excess spaces from all parts of string", {
+  expect_equal(str_squish("ab\t\tc\t"),   "ab c")
+  expect_equal(str_squish("\ta  bc"),   "a bc")
+  expect_equal(str_squish("\ta\t bc\t"), "a bc")
+})