Normalize or compact white spaces

CSharp · Console

/Program.cs

using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
					
public class Program
{
	public static void Main()
	{
		string text = @"
		

		Every night	   in my 			dreams 	I see you, I feel you
	That's how    I know you go on

Far across the 	distance and 			places between us   



You            have                 come                    to know you go on






		


";
			bool preserveTabs = false;

            //[Step 1]: Clean up white spaces around the text
            text = text.Trim();
            //Console.Write("\nTrim\n======\n" + text);

            //[Step 2]: Reduce repeated spaces to single space. 
            text = Regex.Replace(text, @" +", " ");
            // Console.Write("\nNo repeated spaces\n======\n" + text);

            //[Step 3]: Hande Tab spaces. Tabs needs to treated with care because 
                      //in some files tabs have special meaning (for eg Tab seperated files)
            if(preserveTabs)
            {
                text = Regex.Replace(text, @" *\t *", "\t");
            }
            else
            {
                text = Regex.Replace(text, @"[ \t]+", " ");
            }
            //Console.Write("\nTabs preserved\n======\n" + text);

            //[Step 4]: Reduce repeated new lines (and other white spaces around them)
                      //into a single new line.
            text = Regex.Replace(text, @"([\t ]*(\n)+[\t ]*)+", "\n");
            Console.Write("\nClean New Lines\n======\n" + text);    
	}
}