diff --git a/rpmio/macro.c b/rpmio/macro.c
index 68229afdfb..bb0bb6594c 100644
--- a/rpmio/macro.c
+++ b/rpmio/macro.c
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 #include <stdarg.h>
 #include <pthread.h>
 #include <errno.h>
+#include <ctype.h>
 #ifdef HAVE_GETOPT_H
 #include <getopt.h>
 #else
@@ -864,6 +865,28 @@ doFoo(MacroBuf mb, int negate, const char * f, size_t fn,
 	if ((b = strrchr(buf, '/')) != NULL)
 	    *b = '\0';
 	b = buf;
+    } else if (STREQ("shrink", f, fn)) {
+	/*
+	 * shrink body by removing all leading and trailing whitespaces and
+	 * reducing intermediate whitespaces to a single space character.
+	 */
+	int i, j, k, was_space = 0;
+	for (i = 0, j = 0, k = (int)strlen(buf); i < k; ) {
+	    if (isspace((int)(buf[i]))) {
+		was_space = 1;
+		i++;
+		continue;
+	    }
+	    else if (was_space) {
+		was_space = 0;
+		if (j > 0) /* remove leading blanks at all */
+		    buf[j++] = ' ';
+		/* fallthrough */
+	    }
+	    buf[j++] = buf[i++];
+	}
+	buf[j] = '\0';
+	b = buf;
     } else if (STREQ("suffix", f, fn)) {
 	if ((b = strrchr(buf, '.')) != NULL)
 	    b++;
@@ -1197,6 +1220,7 @@ expandMacro(MacroBuf mb, const char *src, size_t slen)
 	/* XXX necessary but clunky */
 	if (STREQ("basename", f, fn) ||
 	    STREQ("dirname", f, fn) ||
+	    STREQ("shrink", f, fn) ||
 	    STREQ("suffix", f, fn) ||
 	    STREQ("expand", f, fn) ||
 	    STREQ("verbose", f, fn) ||