use Benchmark 'cmpthese';
use Regexp::Common 'whitespace';

my $f = '   this is a string with  spaces  to    remove      ';
cmpthese(-3, {
  'Regexp-Common' => sub { $_=$f; s/$RE{ws}{crop}//g;    },
  'two-s///'      => sub { $_=$f; s/^\s+//; s/\s+$//;    },
  'one-s///'      => sub { $_=$f; s/^\s+|\s+$//g;        },
  's-capture'     => sub { $_=$f; s/^\s*(.*?)\s*$/$1/;   },
  's-capture2'    => sub { $_=$f; s/^\s*(\S+(?:\s+\S+)?)?\s*$/$1/; },
  'm-capture'     => sub { $_=$f; ($_) = /(\S+(?:\s+\S+)?)/;    },
});