#!perl
use Benchmark;
my $junk =
  '  The   quick   brown   fox   Jumped   over   the   lazy   dog  ';
timethese(-10,
{
  'split'    => sub { $x = join ' ', split ' ', $junk; },
  'trans'    => sub { ($x = $junk) =~ tr/ \t\r\n/ /s;
                      $x =~ s/^ //; $x =~ s/ $//; },
  'subst'    => sub { ($x = $junk) =~ s/\s+/ /g;
                      $x =~ s/^ //; $x =~ s/ $//; },
  'subst2'   => sub { ($x = $junk) =~ s/^\s+//; $x =~ s/\s+$//;
                      $x =~ s/\s+/ /g; },
});

##</code><code>##

Benchmark: running split, subst, subst2, trans,
  each for at least 10 CPU seconds...
     split: 41225.50/s
     subst: 40796.61/s
    subst2: 38222.28/s
     trans: 72880.42/s