JavaScript character count without counting spaces in Textarea (Code provided)

Hello All;

I am currently using the following code, to count the characters in a Textarea.

<script>
 function textChar(val) {
        var len = val.value.length;
        if (len >= 2000) {
        } 
          $('#textNum').text(2000 - len);
      };
</script>

<textarea name="my_textarea" id="my_textarea" placeholder="Enter information here" rows="8" cols="60" onKeyUp="textChar(this);" tabindex="2"></textarea>

Select allOpen in new window

The above code works great, love using it.
However, it counts the white spaces as well.
this               and                that
Instead of this being 11 characters, it is 42 characters of which are including the spaces.

I have been searching around and found some scripts that would, but cannot get them to work with what I already have.
(OR) to work with a single field.

I found that I need to do something like this.

replace(/\s+/g,'');

Select allOpen in new window

But I am unsure are where to place it at, within my code, to make it work.

Any assistance on this would be great.
Carrzkiss