How do I get rid of the spaces for my Caesar shift program in python?

Question

I am trying to create a python code which will encrypt and decrypt words and everything works except the block encryption. I just need to find a way to get rid of all of the spaces - here is the code I've been using

    #Stops the program going over the 25 (because 26 would be useless)
#character limit
MAX = 25

#Main menu and ensuring only the 3 options are chosen
def getMode():
    while True:
        print('Main Menu: Encrypt (e), Decrypt (d), Stop (s), Block Encrypt (be).')
        mode = input().lower()
        if mode in 'encrypt e decrypt d block encrypt be'.split():
            return mode
        if mode in 'stop s'.split():
            exit()
        else:
            print('Please enter only "encrypt", "e", "decrypt", "d", "stop", "s" or "block encrypt", "be"')

def getMessage():
    print('Enter your message:')
    return input()

#Creating the offset factor 
def getKey():
    key = 0
    while True:
        print('Enter the offset factor (1-%s)' % (MAX))
        key = int(input())
        if (key >= 1 and key <= MAX):
            return key

#Decryption with the offset factor       
def getTranslatedMessage(mode, message, key):
    if mode[0] == 'd':
#The key is inversed so that it simply takes away the offset factor instead
#of adding it        
        key = -key
    translated = ''

    if mode[0] == 'be':
        string.replace(" ","")

        #The spaces are all removed for the block encryption

#Ensuring that only letters are attempted to be coded
    for symbol in message:
        if symbol.isalpha():
            number = ord(symbol)
            number += key
#Ensuring the alphabet loops back over to "a" if it goes past "z"
            if symbol.isupper():
                if number > ord('Z'):
                    number -= 26
                elif number < ord('A'):
                    number += 26
            elif symbol.islower():
                if number > ord('z'):
                    number -= 26
                elif number < ord('a'):
                    number += 26

            translated += chr(number)
        else:
            translated += symbol
    return translated
#Returns translated text

mode = getMode()
message = getMessage()
key = getKey()
#Retrieving the mode, message and key

print('The translated message is:')
print(getTranslatedMessage(mode, message, key))
#Tells the user what the message is

---

This is my code. At the bit where it says:

if mode[0] == 'be': 
    string.replace(" ","")

This is my attempt at getting rid of the spaces which does not work. If anyone could help, that would be good. Making it one space every 5 letters would be even better, but I don't need that. Thank you for your help

Answer 1

Python strings are immutable .

Therefore string.replace(" ","") doesn't modify string , but returns a copy of string without spaces. The copy is discarded later, because you do not associate a name with it.

Use

string = string.replace(" ","")

Answer 2

import re

myString = "I want to Remove all white \t spaces, new lines \n and tabs \t"

myString = re.sub(r"[\n\t\s]*", "", myString)

print myString