You can do this, but the issues stem from how you parse the quotes, and how they are delimited, especially with respect to embedded quotes. In some cases you have formats which encode a quote like: 
" \" "
" "" "

[download]
Some DB scripting languages have a truly horrific way of doing it, but the basics are the same. In terms of a regex, you are looking for a quote, zero or more non-quote or delimited quote characters, and the terminating quote. You can easily change the delimited quote character bit to suit your fancy.

Here is my rather unruly specimen:
s/((?:"(?:\\"|[^"])*?")|(?:'(?:\\'|[^'])*?'))|(\s+)/$2?" ":$1/ge;
Here is what it did to my test data: 
A  language by  "any other  \"name\"", would  it smell   as sweet?
A language by "any other  \"name\"", would it smell as sweet?

[download]
If you weren't concerned about delimited quotes, as HTML has no such thing, really, then you could use a simplified version of same:
s/((?:"[^"]*?")|(?:'[^']*?'))|(\s+)/$2?" ":$1/ge;

In reply to Re: Global Whitespace Delete by tadman
in thread global whitespace delete by physi

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.