Something like:

use strict;
use warnings;

my @strs = (
    "j    k l         foobar",
    "foobar",
    "jkl foobar",
    "1 2 3",
    "jk l foobar",
    "foobar j k l",
    "foobar j kl",
    "           ",
    " ",
    "j jk foobar",
    "j k jk foobar",
    "j k l"
);

my @sanitisedNames = ();

for my $str (@strs) {
    my $oStr = $str;

    $str =~ s/\G([a-z])\s+(?!\w{2})/$1/gi;
    $str =~ s/\s+/ /g;

    push @sanitisedNames, [$oStr, $str];

}

printf "%-25s >%s<\n", @$_ for (@sanitisedNames);

[download]

Prints:

j    k l         foobar   >jkl foobar<
foobar                    >foobar<
jkl foobar                >jkl foobar<
1 2 3                     >1 2 3<
jk l foobar               >jk l foobar<
foobar j k l              >foobar j k l<
foobar j kl               >foobar j kl<
                          > <
                          > <
j jk foobar               >j jk foobar<
j k jk foobar             >jk jk foobar<
j k l                     >jkl<

[download]
True laziness is hard work

In reply to Re: String manipulation by GrandFather
in thread String manipulation by abhy

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.