Removing spaces from a variable input using PowerShell 4.0

You're close. You can strip the whitespace by using the replace method like this:

$answer.replace(' ','')

There needs to be no space or characters between the second set of quotes in the replace method (replacing the whitespace with nothing).

The Replace operator means Replace something with something else; do not be confused with removal functionality.

Also you should send the result processed by the operator to a variable or to another operator. Neither .Replace(), nor -replace modifies the original variable.

To remove all spaces, use 'Replace any space symbol with empty string'

$string = $string -replace '\s',''

To remove all spaces at the beginning and end of the line, and replace all double-and-more-spaces or tab symbols to spacebar symbol, use

$string = $string -replace '(^\s+|\s+$)','' -replace '\s+',' '

or the more native System.String method

$string = $string.Trim()

Regexp is preferred, because ' ' means only 'spacebar' symbol, and '\s' means 'spacebar, tab and other space symbols'. Note that $string.Replace() does 'Normal' replace, and $string -replace does RegEx replace, which is more heavy but more functional.

Note that RegEx have some special symbols like dot (.), braces ([]()), slashes (\), hats (^), mathematical signs (+-) or dollar signs ($) that need do be escaped. ( 'my.space.com' -replace '\.','-' => 'my-space-com'. A dollar sign with a number (ex $1) must be used on a right part with care

'2033' -replace '(\d+)',$( 'Data: $1')
Data: 2033

UPDATE: You can also use $str = $str.Trim(), along with TrimEnd() and TrimStart(). Read more at System.String MSDN page.