snow-white spaces!

#!/usr/bin/env python 
import re

reg = re.compile('\s+')
line = """   This is a    line with                                             
            lots of spaces   and tabs and                                       
            new lines """

print "BEFORE REPLACEMENT"
print line

print "\nAFTER REPLACEMENT"
line2 = reg.sub("", line)
print line2

>>> from string import whitespace as whitespaces
>>> 
>>> sample = 'Hello World!'
>>> 
>>> for character in whitespaces:
...     sample = sample.replace(character, '')
... 
>>> sample
'HelloWorld!'
>>> 
>>> sample = 'Hello World!'
>>>
>>> results = []
>>>    
>>> for letter in sample:   
...     if letter not in whitespaces: results.append(letter)
... 
>>> results
['H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', 'W', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd', '!']
>>>
>>> ''.join(results)
'HelloWorld!'
>>>
>>> [letter for letter in sample if letter not in whitespaces]
['H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', 'W', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd', '!']
>>>