Is there a difference between /\s/g and /\s+/g?

In the first regex, each space character is being replaced, character by character, with the empty string.

In the second regex, each contiguous string of space characters is being replaced with the empty string because of the +.

However, just like how 0 multiplied by anything else is 0, it seems as if both methods strip spaces in exactly the same way.

If you change the replacement string to '#', the difference becomes much clearer:

var str = '  A B  C   D EF ';
console.log(str.replace(/\s/g, '#'));  // ##A#B##C###D#EF#
console.log(str.replace(/\s+/g, '#')); // #A#B#C#D#EF#