Remove spaces from a given string

Difficulty Level : Easy
Last Updated : 07 Jul, 2021

Given a string, remove all spaces from the string and return it.

Input:  "g  eeks   for ge  eeks  "
Output: "geeksforgeeks"

Expected time complexity is O(n) and only one traversal of string.

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Below is a Simple Solution

1) Iterate through all characters of given string, do following
   a) If current character is a space, then move all subsequent
      characters one position back and decrease length of the 
      result string.

Time complexity of above solution is O(n²).
A Better Solution can solve it in O(n) time. The idea is to keep track of count of non-space character seen so far.

1) Initialize 'count' = 0 (Count of non-space character seen so far)
2) Iterate through all characters of given string, do following
     a) If current character is non-space, then put this character
        at index 'count' and increment 'count'
3) Finally, put '\0' at index 'count'

Below is the implementation of above algorithm.

C++

// An efficient C++ program to remove all spaces
// from a string
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
 
// Function to remove all spaces from a given string
void removeSpaces(char *str)
{
    // To keep track of non-space character count
    int count = 0;
 
    // Traverse the given string. If current character
    // is not space, then place it at index 'count++'
    for (int i = 0; str[i]; i++)
        if (str[i] != ' ')
            str[count++] = str[i]; // here count is
                                   // incremented
    str[count] = '\0';
}
 
// Driver program to test above function
int main()
{
    char str[] = "g  eeks   for ge  eeks  ";
    removeSpaces(str);
    cout << str;
    return 0;
}

Java

     
// An efficient Java program to remove all spaces
// from a string
class GFG
{
 
// Function to remove all spaces
// from a given string
static int removeSpaces(char []str)
{
    // To keep track of non-space character count
    int count = 0;
 
    // Traverse the given string.
    // If current character
    // is not space, then place
    // it at index 'count++'
    for (int i = 0; i<str.length; i++)
        if (str[i] != ' ')
            str[count++] = str[i]; // here count is
                                    // incremented
         
    return count;
}
 
// Driver code
public static void main(String[] args)
{
    char str[] = "g eeks for ge eeks ".toCharArray();
    int i = removeSpaces(str);
    System.out.println(String.valueOf(str).subSequence(0, i));
}
}
 
// This code is contributed by Rajput-Ji

Python

# Python program to Remove spaces from a given string
 
# Function to remove all spaces from a given string
def removeSpaces(string):
 
    # To keep track of non-space character count
    count = 0
 
    list = []
 
    # Traverse the given string. If current character
    # is not space, then place it at index 'count++'
    for i in xrange(len(string)):
        if string[i] != ' ':
            list.append(string[i])
 
    return toString(list)
 
# Utility Function
def toString(List):
    return ''.join(List)
 
# Driver program
string = "g  eeks  for ge  eeks  "
print removeSpaces(string)
 
# This code is contributed by Bhavya Jain

C#

// An efficient C# program to remove all
// spaces from a string
using System;
 
class GFG
{
 
// Function to remove all spaces
// from a given string
static int removeSpaces(char []str)
{
    // To keep track of non-space
    // character count
    int count = 0;
 
    // Traverse the given string. If current
    // character is not space, then place
    // it at index 'count++'
    for (int i = 0; i < str.Length; i++)
        if (str[i] != ' ')
            str[count++] = str[i]; // here count is
                                   // incremented
 
    return count;
}
 
// Driver code
public static void Main(String[] args)
{
    char []str = "g eeks for ge eeks ".ToCharArray();
    int i = removeSpaces(str);
    Console.WriteLine(String.Join("", str).Substring(0, i));
}
}
 
// This code is contributed by 29AjayKumar

Javascript

<script>
 
      // An efficient JavaScript program to remove all
      // spaces from a string
       
      // Function to remove all spaces
      // from a given string
      function removeSpaces(str) {
        // To keep track of non-space
        // character count
        var count = 0;
 
        // Traverse the given string. If current
        // character is not space, then place
        // it at index 'count++'
        for (var i = 0; i < str.length; i++)
          if (str[i] !== " ") str[count++] = str[i];
         // here count is
        // incremented
 
        return count;
      }
 
      // Driver code
      var str = "g eeks for ge eeks ".split("");
      var i = removeSpaces(str);
      document.write(str.join("").substring(0, i));
       
</script>

Output

geeksforgeeeks

Time complexity of above solution is O(n) and it does only one traversal of string.
Another solution suggested by Divyam Madaan is to use predefined functions. Here is the implementation:

C++

// CPP program to Remove spaces
// from a given string
 
#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>
using namespace std;
 
// Function to remove all spaces from a given string
string removeSpaces(string str)
{
    str.erase(remove(str.begin(), str.end(), ' '), str.end());
    return str;
}
 
// Driver program to test above function
int main()
{
    string str = "g eeks for ge eeks ";
    str = removeSpaces(str);
    cout << str;
    return 0;
}
 
// This code is contributed by Divyam Madaan

Java

// Java program to remove
// all spaces from a string
 
class GFG {
     
    // Function to remove all
    // spaces from a given string
    static String removeSpace(String str)
    {
        str = str.replaceAll("\\s","");
        return str;
    }
 
    // Driver Code
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        String str = "g eeks for ge eeks ";
        System.out.println(removeSpace(str));
    }
}
 
// This code is contributed by Kanhaiya.

Python

# Python program to Remove spaces from a given string
  
# Function to remove all spaces from a given string
def removeSpaces(string):
    string = string.replace(' ','')
    return string
     
# Driver program
string = "g  eeks  for ge  eeks  "
print(removeSpaces(string))
 
# This code is contributed by Divyam Madaan

C#

// C# program to remove
// all spaces from a string
using System;
 
class GFG
{
     
    // Function to remove all
    // spaces from a given string
    static String removeSpace(String str)
    {
        str = str.Replace(" ","");
        return str;
    }
 
    // Driver Code
    public static void Main()
    {
        String str = "g eeks for ge eeks ";
        Console.WriteLine(removeSpace(str));
    }
}
 
// This code is contributed by
// PrinciRaj1992

Javascript

<script>
// javascript program to remove
// all spaces from a string
    // Function to remove all
    // spaces from a given string
     function removeSpace( str)
     {
        str = str.replace(/\s/g,'')
        return str;
    }
 
    // Driver Code   
        var str = "g eeks for ge eeks ";
        document.write(removeSpace(str));
 
// This code contributed by aashish1995
</script>

Output

geeksforgeeeks

Another method to solve this problem using predefined STL functions like count() ,remove() ,getline() and resize() is also present. Here is the implementation for the same :

C++

#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
    string s = "g e e k s f o r g e e k s";
 
    cout << "string with spaces is " << s << endl;
 
    int l = s.length(); // storing the length of the string
 
    int c
        = count(s.begin(), s.end(),
                ' '); // counting the number of whitespaces
 
    remove(s.begin(), s.end(),
           ' '); // removing all the whitespaces
 
    s.resize(l - c); // resizing the string to l-c
 
    cout << "string without spaces is " << s << endl;
 
    return 0;
}

Output

string with spaces is g e e k s f o r g e e k s
string without spaces is geeksforgeeks

Thanks to Souravi Sarkar for suggesting this problem and initial solution.
Java | Removing whitespaces using Regex
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Remove spaces from a given string

We strongly recommend that you click here and practice it, before moving on to the solution.

C++

Java

Python

C#

Javascript

C++

Java

Python

C#

Javascript

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