Stripping Whitespace Efficiently in Go: Finding the Optimal Solution

When working with strings in Go, ensuring efficient handling of whitespace removal is crucial. This question explores the optimal approach to strip all whitespace from a string.

Question:

How can I expeditiously strip all whitespace from an arbitrary string in Go? I've experimented with chaining the strings.Fields() and strings.Join() functions, but I suspect there's a more efficient method.

Response:

A straightforward and efficient solution is to utilize the strings.ReplaceAll() function:

randomString := "  hello      this is a test"
fmt.Println(strings.ReplaceAll(randomString, " ", ""))

// Output:
// hellothisisatest

By employing strings.ReplaceAll(), you can replace all occurrences of the specified whitespace character (in this case, " ") with an empty string. This approach is more concise and performant compared to chaining multiple functions.

Playground:

[Go Playground Demonstration](https://go.dev/play/p/m4OHzJ5FaCo)

Note:

It's important to note that this method removes a specific type of whitespace character. If your input string contains different types of whitespace (e.g., tabs, newlines), you may need to execute multiple strings.ReplaceAll() calls to address each type individually.