s/\s(\s+)/" " . (" " x length ($1))/ge

use strict;
use warnings;

my $str = "Joe said   hello";

print "\"$str\" --> \"";
$str =~ s/\s(\s+)/" " . (" " x length ($1))/ge;
print $str . "\"\n";

"Joe said   hello" --> "Joe said   hello"

[download]
update: Fix code quoting for regex
Perl is Huffman encoded by design.

In reply to Re: Converting multiple spaces to nbsp by GrandFather
in thread Converting multiple spaces to nbsp by eastcoastcoder

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